In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we celebrate the Apostle Paul’s conversion. As Saul Paulus of Tarsus, he was a rising star in the rabbinical leadership of the time. When Saint Stephen was stoned to death as the first Christian martyr, Paul stood by, supervising the execution and guarding the cloaks of the stone throwers.
After the execution, he traveled toward Damascus to hunt down even more Christians.
But along the way he met Jesus. After his conversion, he became perhaps the most prolific evangelist of the Early Church. In our reading from the Book of Acts today, we see what changed Saul, the persecutor of Christians into Paul the saint and author of nearly half the books in the New Testament (13 of 27).
Dramatic conversions happen even today. In a news report dated XXXXX YY, 200Y, (pick a date two days in the future) the following was discovered:
“Osama bin Laden was discovered in a hospital in Northern Pakistan, suffering from multiple fractures, lacerations, and contusions. He had been whipped, and beaten with clubs and stones and left for dead outside a mosque in Islamabad.
“According to local sources, bin Laden had been invited to the mosque where he began preaching about Jesus being the Savior and Lord of all nations. Bin Laden claimed that a visiting missionary from Voice of the Martyrs had met with him a few weeks before, and had later baptized him as a Christian.
“The Koran and Sha’ria law call for the death of anyone converting from Islam. Despite the obvious danger in publicly disclosing his conversion, bin Laden had been traveling throughout the region the past week, visiting other Christians in underground churches, until yesterday’s incident….”
That news report hasn’t really happened, as the date I gave you was in the future. However, it could happen, and the fact that we thought about whether it was a true story or not, even for a moment, is the point of Paul’s conversion. Anyone can be brought to Jesus; it is not too late for any of us.
But I ask you, do you think most Christians today really believe this? Would we trust bin Laden if we were a group of Christians worshipping in hiding in Pakistan? Someone who has devoted so much of his life to cruelly killing Christians? We would probably react like Ananias did at first — with total shock and surprise — but would we then obey God and accept him as a forgiven brother in Christ?
This is the same kind of dilemma the early Christians found themselves in. Jesus chose Paul as his messenger to the Gentiles. He wanted Paul to share the Gospel that he had been doing his utmost to wipe out. Paul’s conversion changed his behavior as well as his theology.
Paul was the bin Laden of his time, and the disciples were very skeptical about his sudden conversion. After all, he had been responsible for the imprisonment and death of many of their friends and brothers in Christ.
Finally, Barnabas had to convince them to even meet with Paul. Then they were convinced that he was truly called by God. His behavior showed it. He traveled through the known world of that time preaching Christ to anyone who was willing to listen to him, even to people who weren’t willing.
By his words and his actions, Paul preached Christ, leading many, continuing to this day to lead many, to salvation.
Nothing would interfere with Paul’s mission
Not his own desires
Not the floggings, beatings and stonings that he endured,
Not the pain of his injuries.
One of my favorite scenes in the film “Peter and Paul” shows Paul and Barnabas leaving yet another town where they’d been beaten and stoned. As they’re walking through the woods, Barnabas suggests they not go on to Lystra, since they get beaten, whipped, or stoned in every town they go to.
Paul says, “No. We’re going to Lystra,” and keeps walking quickly. Barnabas says “But what’s the use?” And Paul keeps walking, saying, “We’re going to Lystra.”
Barnabas starts walking quicker to catch up to Paul, and says, “Oh, well. Let’s pray to the Lord then that the stones are softer in Lystra.”
Do we follow God’s will as fervently as Paul did? Or do we avoid doing what God wants us to do because of how we think others will act toward us?
Do we do what’s wrong, just so our friends will think we’re cool?
Do we drive around with a fish logo and a “Jesus Loves You” sticker on the back of our car, but flip off other drivers that cut us off?
Do we use foul language, because everyone else in our crowd talks that way?
Do we just sit there and laugh when people tell us dirty jokes, even though they know we’re Christians?
When we do these things, we’re denying the God who willingly died for us because we’re afraid of what others might say about us.
Paul and Barnabas would gladly have endured the soft stones we’re afraid to face.
We’re supposed to turn others from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. But we often do just the opposite.
And it isn’t something new.
The history books are full of examples of Christians leading others away from the cross. All too often, we lead by the wrong example.
We have to live Christ in everything we do and say, so that others will be pointed to Jesus and come to know him as their Savior. Our testimony goes way beyond what we say, and is more far reaching than we’ll ever know.
Dr. James Dobson’s Focus On The Family recently aired this true story from Dr. Bob Reccord, president of the International Missions Board:
A pastor friend in Texas was in a hurry after work. He had to get to the mall for some items, go to his daughter’s school to pick her up, take her home, get to a Deacons meeting, and then to spend the evening in counseling sessions. Once in the mall, he saw an advertisement on a music store window that said, “2 CD’s for $9.99.”
He loved music so much he decided he just had to take advantage of it. He went in and picked up 2 CD’s he’d really wanted, and went to the register to pay for them. He threw down with his money while talking to everyone around him — as pastors do.
Then he picked up his bag and his change and went out of the mall. When he threw the bag in the front seat of his car, he noticed for the first time that the clerk had charged him $1.99 instead of $9.99 for those CD’s. His first thought was that he didn’t have time to go back in to get it fixed.
But a small voice kept saying, “You don’t have time not to.”
So, he went back in, stood in the same line until it came his time to talk to the clerk once again. He said, “Look I’m in a hurry. You made a mistake. The sign says $9.99 and you charged me $1.99. Please make this correct so I can get on with what I have to do.”
She said, “Sir, I didn’t make a mistake.”
He said, “Sure you did. There’s the sign; here’s the receipt. Please make the correction.”
She said, “No, sir, I didn’t make a mistake.”
He said, “What do you mean?!!”
She said, “Can I tell you the rest of the story. Will you let me finish, please?”
He said, “Yes I will.”
She said, “For 17 years I’ve been out of church. Recently, my life has been falling apart and I needed to get back into church. I looked around at what was closest to me. I found the name of the church and I went there Sunday and slipped in and sat on the back row. The pastor that day was speaking on integrity.
Sir, it happened to be your church. And when I saw you in my line, I wondered if this was something you preached on Sunday or lived on Monday. And I determined to find out.”
Then she said, “Sir, I don’t even know the right questions to ask, but I know that whatever you’ve got I need.” And then she began to cry.
The manager, who happened to be a Christian, stepped in and took over the register, dismissed the pastor and then he led her to the Lord.
Do you think she would have ever gone to church again if this pastor had not gone back in?
Our witness, even in the everyday events of our lives, makes a difference in others’ lives.
When we say we’re Christians and behave in ways that turn others from Christ we are killing them. No, not their bodies. They will live in this world fine for a few more years.
Rather, our combined efforts, our hypocrisy, the bombardment of un-Christlike behavior from us, is a stoning to death of their very soul.
When we trip those who walk toward Christ, or detour them from the path of righteousness, we kill another Christian in the womb.
I’ve heard people described as being too honest.
A man finds moneybags full of cash; about $40,000 and returns it to the bank that lost it from an armored truck.
A woman finds a wallet in the street and mails it to the rightful owner with all the money still inside it.
You get too much change back from the cashier while shopping and return it to her.
But there’s no such thing as being too honest, or somewhat honest, or relatively honest, because honesty is qualitative not quantitative.
You’re either honest or you’re not. You can’t be somewhat honest anymore than you can be somewhat pregnant.
Likewise, we can’t be somewhat Christlike in our behavior. We either show Christ or we don’t.
When non-Christians see Christians behave in ways that disgrace God, the integrity of His message in gone.
Paul tells us to avoid sexual immorality, yet we often see the cross worn as a fashion accessory for some of the most revealing garments imaginable. Fashion models with crosses and Angel wings parade around on television wearing less clothing than most Hollywood hookers.
Paul tells us to love one another as Christ loved us. Yet the Ku Klux Klan burns a large wooden cross in front of the homes of people they hate.
During the crusades, Christians decorated their shields with large crosses, then proceeded to slaughter men, women, and children, under the guise of bringing Christianity to them, while really just stealing their gold and other treasures.
When non-Christians see behaviors like these from purported Christians, do we really believe their eyes, like Saul’s, are being opened so they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.
Or are they being led by us away from Christ, and thereby back into darkness?
We tend to think of the stoning of Christians as a terrible thing that Paul was involved in, something that we would never be part of. But which is worse: the stoning of a physical body whose soul has been saved, or the spiritual stoning of a soul whose body is still dead in its sins?
We, like Paul, as followers of Christ, Christians, are sent to the Gentiles of our time: secular humanists, moral relativists, materialists, even atheists, to open their eyes, like Saul’s were opened by Ananias, so they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.
When we by our behavior lead others from the light into darkness, and thus away from God, our sins are no longer a private issue between us and our maker. Our sins become spiritual stones hurled at those who might otherwise have come to Christ.
We can’t force others to Christ, but we can force them away from Him. I can’t imagine any greater torment when I die than to see others in Hell and hear Jesus say, “But for you, these souls would have been saved.”
This was Paul’s driving force. Not that he’d found some wonderful new theology that annoyed his fellow Pharisees. Not that he found some way to hedge his bets in case this resurrection thing was really true.
Rather, he realized that if he was to really live for Christ, he had to live as Christ. He had to live as Jesus lived, and do what Jesus did. There is no middle ground. It became his purpose in life to bring to Christ everyone who could hear his voice or read his letters. He became totally changed by God. He modeled Christ daily. He was the same on Monday as he was on Sunday. Paul knew that he couldn’t lead others to the light while remaining in darkness himself. And neither can we.
Amen.
