Title: Recycled People
Text: Acts 9:1-20
Thesis: God is a master at recycling and reshaping our lives into something new.
Introduction
There is a growing awareness of increasing efforts to recycle… it is going on all around us:
The most notable home in Colorado built with recycled materials is Dennis Weavers “Earthship” near Ridgeway, Colorado. It is a beautiful, environmentally friendly, 10,000 square foot home made of used tires, aluminum cans and other recycled materials. It may be made of junk but it has been featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Home and Gardens, the Discovery Channel, and PBS. And… you can own “Earthship” for only $3,3 million dollars.
There are not many things that are not being recycled:
• Recycled paper products
• Recycled glass and metal products
• Salvage yards recycle car, truck and machinery parts
• Construction and Demolition Recycling Magazine recently reported that Habitat for Humanity had opened a used building materials outlet here in Denver.
• Perhaps you’ve noticed the sign on the front of the home being demolished on the corner of Sheridan and 72nd Avenue that reads… NO COPPER! The intent is to deter anyone who might want to sneak in and strip the place of copper wiring for resale at the recyclers.
• Right here in Arvada, RMC (Recycled Material Company) is doing what they now call urban quarrying. They have taken the concrete and asphalt from the old Stapleton Airport site and are producing 5,000 tons of secondary aggregate every day. You can catch a glimpse of some of their work between Raulston Road and I-76 as you drive down Sheridan.
• Even our thrift stores and garage sales are ways people recycle.
Just as we have come to see that nearly anything and everything from broken glass, steel belted tires, aluminum cans, and concrete slabs as recyclable, God sees people as recyclable.
God sees the person who exhibits the most misguided, disreputable, and even disgraceful behavior as recyclable.
Saul, who would later be known, as the Apostle Paul was such a person… he needed to be reclaimed and recycled as a person.
I. Some people are in serious need of being recycled.
Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath. He was eager to destroy the Lord’s followers… he wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains. Acts 9:1-2
A. Saul was a man on a rampage. He was fanatical and ruthless in his hatred for the followers of Jesus Christ.
• He uttered threats with every breath
• He was eager to destroy the followers of Christ.
B. Saul was mean-spirited.
• He sought the cooperation of the religious leaders in Damascus in arresting Christians there so he could bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
The panic that swept through a community when Paul arrived could be compared to what happens when the INS does a round up. Spouses are separated and children are left as those without proper documentation are loaded onto busses to be deported.
If I were to compare him to one of our contemporaries, I think of the Fred Phelps and his followers from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Fred is on a misguided mission in which he even pickets the funerals of Iraq War casualties, suggesting that the war is God’s judgment upon America because of homosexuality.
C. Saul deserved to be pulverized.
• He was an instigator in the first efforts to persecute Christians.
• Saul was going everywhere to devastate the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into jail. Acts 8:1
When I was a boy, I would sometimes ride my bicycle up and down the streets and alleys of town and country roads checking the ditches for pop bottles. Every time I found a bottle, it was as if I had found a nugget of gold. And then when I had collected enough bottles I would go to the corner market and get a pop or ice cream sandwich.
I think that is how it was for when God found Saul along the road leading into Damascus. The bible says that, as he was nearing Damascus on this mission, a brilliant light from heaven suddenly beamed down on him! He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?” Acts 9:4-5
To say that Saul is the only kind of person in need of a recycling would be an understatement. There are many ways that people can be misguided.
At some point in our lives, we all find ourselves in places and patterns of behavior that may be harmful to ourselves and others… and deep down we know that we are in serious need of being transformed from what we are into what we may be by the grace of God.
I suspect that Alec Baldwin would give just about anything right now if he could get back those hateful things he said to his daughter and replace them with words of affirmation, patience and love. Sometimes it is just such a crisis that God uses to knock us to the ground to get our attention.
Just as people are instrumental in the recycling of products, people are instrumental in the recycling of persons.
II. God uses people in the process of recycling people.
There was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord told him to go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. Saying, “When you arrive, ask for Saul of Tarsus. He is praying to me. I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so that he can see again.” Acts 9:10-12
A. Some people are reluctant recyclers.
He protested, “But Lord, I’ve heard about the terrible things this man has done…” Acts 9:13
B. Some people would rather condemn than care…
One morning as I was waiting at the stop light at 68th and Sheridan, a man who was taking his morning walk stopped, stooped down, stood up, and with a big smile on his face showed me the quarter he had just picked up… it was going to be a good day for him!
We often fail to pick up a penny or some other discarded recyclable because we just don’t think they are worth the effort to pick up…. It can be that way with people too. Sometimes we wonder if a person is really worth the effort it would take to pick them up.
Have you seen the signs around town that say, “WE BUY UGLY HOUSES”? What those entrepreneurs are saying is that they are willing to buy your shabby, run-down, fixer-up for pennies on the dollar, doll up the ugly old house and flip if for a handsome profit. When some of us look at a house we see it as too far-gone to save, but these folks see promise in every ugly old house.
Just as we may not think a person is worth the effort to recycle, we sometimes are quick to concede that some folks are just too far gone to save. God never sees a person as being of too little worth or too far gone to reclaim and recycle.
And the reason God is so optimistic is that he sees what people can be.
III. God sees people as they may be.
“Go and do what I say. For Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel.” Acts 9:15
I really enjoy the PBS programming and check the TV guide every day to see what is offered in the evening. I am particularly delighted when I see that The Red Green Show is going to be broadcast on public television. Red Green ends each of his shows with a saying that goes something like this, “If the ladies don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”
Red Green is one of those eccentric kind of men who sees the possibilities in every odd, cast-off piece of junk imaginable… there is nothing Red Green cannot fix-up and make useful with duct tape. Everything he sees has great potential for something.
God is the browser in an old estate auction who happens upon the rickety old rocking chair with broken rungs, six cracked and caked coats of black enamel, and assorted springs pushing out through what was once a seat cushion. God sees the rocker stripped of the layers of paint. God sees new supports. God sees a fine leather seat. God sees a beautifully refinished oak rocker refitted to rock children to sleep for years to come.
Conclusion:
Take a moment to recall the story of the Potter and the Clay as told in Jeremiah 18. Try to capture the image of the potter sitting as his wheel. He is working the treadle with his feet and on the tray that spins before him is the making of a clay jar. The clay jar has taken shape and looks promising. He holds the jar between his hands as it spins… he wets his hands and the jar smoothes under his graceful touch. But suddenly the jar takes an ugly turn…
The story says, “The jar did not turn out as he had hoped, so the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started over again.” Jeremiah 18:4
God is a master at recycling lives and reshaping them into something good and useful. We would do well to see…
• See ourselves and others as recyclable
• See ourselves as recyclers.
There is no one of too little worth or too far gone to be reclaimed and recycled for the glory of God and the good of others.
