Encountering Jesus (6)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 2/8/2015
Two thousand years ago, Jesus entered our world and changed everything.
Jesus is the most famous person in all of history. More songs have been sung to him, artwork created of him, and books written about him than anyone who has ever lived. In fact, Jesus looms so large over human history that we actually measure time by him! H.G. Wells, who is famous for his fiction novels like The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, once said, “I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure [of all time].”
But more important than Jesus’s impact on history is his impact on humanity. Everywhere Jesus goes, he leaves changed lives in his tracks. Over the past five weeks, we’ve examined the stories of five people whose lives dramatically changed after an encounter with Jesus. A theologian who grew weary of his religion, a five-time divorcee looking for love in all the wrong places, a blind man who longed to see, a little tax collector who was more than a little curious about Christ, and a woman caught in the act of adultery—their lives were touched and forever changed by an encounter with Jesus.
Jesus’s influence isn’t relegated to the past. You can visit the website—www.jesuschangedme.com—and watch video testimonies of Muslims, atheists, athletes, addicts, drug dealers, celebrities, rappers, sports legends, moms, dads, and people from nearly every walk of life. Each of their stories share one thing in common—they experienced a life-changing encounter with Jesus.
No one can relate to their stories better than the man formerly known as Saul. Jesus already died, rose from the grave and ascended to heaven by the time Saul met him. But his encounter with Jesus was as real and life changing as each of the other five stories we’ve already scrutinized. His transformation was so thorough that even his name was changed. Saul became Paul.
While his story stretches across nearly the entire book of Acts, Paul himself concisely relates the essential elements of his story while on trial before King Agrippa. Separating his story into three segments, Paul begins by describing a life saturated in sin.
• PAUL’S SIN
Trained from an early age in the Hebrew Scriptures, you might expect Paul to be a man of peace, but you’d be wrong. In his own words, Paul describes his transgressions this way: “I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities” (Act 26:9-11 NLT).
For years, Paul was the greatest threat to early Christianity. Pay-rolled by Jerusalem’s leading priests, he passionately pursued Christ-followers from one city to another, flogging them until they renounced their faith in Jesus. Those who remained firm in their faith, he sent to prison…or worse. Paul doesn’t confess to killing anyone with his own hands; rather he stepped aside and let his minions bloody their hands instead. He was no less a religious terrorist than the Muslim’s beheading Christian in the Middle East today.
Not many of us have committed crimes so violent or vicious. Yet, like Paul, our past is swarming with sin. You lose your temper. You lust. You buy a drink. You kiss the woman. You follow the crowd. You rationalize. You break your promise. You buy the magazine. You lie. You covet. You stomp your feet and demand your way.
Sin isn’t just savagery. It’s also subtle. It’s David disrobing Bathsheba. It’s Adam accepting the fruit from Eve. It’s Abraham lying about Sarah. It’s Peter denying that he ever knew Jesus. It’s Noah, drunk and naked in his tent. It’s Lot, in bed with his own daughter. It’s the teenager in the backseat. It’s the alcoholic buying “just one”. It’s the boss touching his secretary’s hand. The husband searching for porn. The mother losing her temper. The father abandoning his children. The gambler losing his money. The Christian losing control.
The symptoms may be different, but the sickness is the same. Each of us are infected with sin. Jesus—the Great Physician—examines our hearts and fills out our charts: “For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22 NLT). He speaks of our problem in pandemic proportions. “No one is righteous—not even one” (Romans 3:10 NLT).
Thankfully, Jesus offers the cure for our sin-sickness. That’s what we see in the second segment of Paul’s story. As Paul continues, he describes his salvation.
• PAUL’S SALVATION
Back in Acts 26, Paul continues to address the King, saying, “One day, I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests. About noon, Your Majesty, as I was on the road, a light from heaven brighter than the sun shone down on me and my companions. We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is useless for you to fight against my will.’
“‘Who are you, lord?’ I asked.
“And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting’” (Acts 26:12-15 NLT)
Knees pressed into the pavement, surrounded by heaven’s light, Paul encountered the risen Jesus and everything changed. The encounter left Paul blind for three days. He ended up bewildered and befuddled in a borrowed bedroom. God left him there with scales on his eyes so thick that the only direction he could look was inside himself. And he didn’t like what he saw. He saw himself for what he really was—a sinner in need of Savior. Alone in the room with his cruelty on his conscience and blood on his hands, he repented of his sins and received his Savior. The legalist Saul was buried, and the liberator Paul was born. He was never the same afterwards.
When you receive Jesus the way Paul did, an exchange takes place. Jesus takes your sin-stained heart and replaces it with his own. Give your heart to Christ, and he returns the favor. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in within you” (Ezekiel 36:26 NCV). You might call it a spiritual heart transplant.
Tara Storch understands this miracle as much as anyone can. In the spring of 2010 a skiing accident took the life of her thirteen-year-old daughter, Taylor. What followed for Tara was every parent’s nightmare: a funeral, a burial, a flood of questions and tears. They decided to donate their daughter’s organs to needy patients. Few people needed a heart more than Patricia Winters. Her heart began to fail five years earlier. Taylor’s heart gave Patricia a fresh start on life. Tara had only one request: she wanted to hear the heart of her daughter one more time. She and her husband, Todd, flew from Dallas to Phoenix and to Patricia’s home. The two mothers embraced for a long time. Then Patricia offered Tara and Todd a stethoscope. Tears covered their cheeks as they listened to the still-beating heart of their daughter.
What Tara did for Patricia, God does for us. He offers us the heart of his Son.
Years later, Paul would write, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20 NLT). Paul sensed within himself not just the philosophy, ideals, or influence of Christ but the person of Jesus. Christ moved in. He still does. He could live anywhere in the universe, but his preferred place is in your heart.
Finally, Jesus not only gave Paul salvation from his sins, he also called Paul into his service.
• PAUL’S SERVICE
Paul draws his story to close by recalling Jesus’ words, “Now get to your feet! For I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant and witness. You are to tell the world what you have seen and what I will show you in the future” (Acts 26:16 NLT).
Jesus drafted Paul into the service of his Kingdom. From that day forward, Paul lived his life for Jesus. He told everyone he encountered what Jesus had done for him. He became an ambassador of God’s love, teaching others to love their neighbor and even to love their enemies. Paul became one of Christianity’s first missionaries, traveling all across the ancient world, building churches, and changing lives.
Not all of us are called to be a missionaries or ministers, but when you embrace Jesus as your Savior, he essentially tells you, “Now get to your feet! We have work to do.” He calls every believer into a life of service.
Opportunities for service abound. Teaching a Sunday School class, providing disaster relief for tornado-ravaged towns, feeding the hungry in war-torn nations, or raising awareness about global sex trafficking are just a fraction of the ways we can serve Jesus. But one of the simplest and most essential means of serving Jesus is telling others about him. That’s what Paul did. On several occasions throughout Scripture, Paul shared the story of how he came to Christ, just as he does here in Acts 26 with King Agrippa.
A few weeks ago, I heard the testimony of a very unlikely convert—the sixty-six year old rock n’ roll legend, Alice Cooper. The aging shock rocker, who is rumored to have once bitten the head off a chicken during a concert, was asked during an interview with BBC Radio about his belief in a higher power. He answered, “Oh, I’m Christian. I make no bones about that. And I’m not what they call a carnal Christian either. I totally believe every single word in the Bible… It hasn’t changed my sense of humor and it certainly hasn’t changed my output in rock and roll, but it’s changed my point of view. It’s changed the way I look at the world.” In one of his most recent hits, a song titled Salvation, he sings: “When did I change, What's different now, it's very strange; when did I change; Someone died for me, Washed in blood he cared enough to pity me, In my heart, in my soul, something's new, that's very old…”
Like, Paul, Alice had a life-altering encounter with Jesus and everything changed. And now he serves the Lord by sharing his story and singing his praises. I think guys like Alice Cooper and the Apostle Paul are proof positive that Jesus changes lives. He comes into the world in search of sinners, saves them, and calls them into service.
Conclusion:
Perhaps you can identify with Paul. We’ve all sinned and fallen short like him. But Jesus sees not what we’ve done, but what we can be when He is done renovating our lives. He sees the “after” not the “before”. He calls us in the midst of our mess not after we have cleaned up our lives a bit.
His greatest delight and determination is to change lives.
He changed Paul’s and he can change yours. The good news is that He’s waiting to meet us—around the corner, in the coffee shop, as we cruise along the freeway. You can encounter Jesus just about anywhere. But be prepared. You may come away from that encounter like Paul did—with your life transformed!
Invitation:
If you need to have a personal encounter with Jesus, he stands ready to meet you, to greet you, and change you. If you still need to receive Jesus as your Savior or if you just want to talk about ways you can serve him, I’d like to help. If you’re ready for a life-changing encounter with Jesus, please come forward now as we stand and sing.
