Making headway. What can you do to get around the roadblocks to your faith, if indeed there are obstacles to your trust in Jesus?

Transcription

1 1 Making headway What can you do to get around the roadblocks to your faith, if indeed there are obstacles to your trust in Jesus? What hinders your spiritual journey? How can you make some headway? Some of us are weighed down by despair overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame: A number of people over the years have shared with me their concern that they might have committed the unforgivable sin: I have failed God. I m still failing God. How could God possible accept a person like me? For others perhaps, it s a loss of conviction: Jesus just doesn t seem real to me any more. If only I could see him or hear him, it would be so much easier to say, I believe. Maybe there s something in the Bible you re struggling with And you find yourself saying, I can t get my head around that And if I can t trust all of the Bible, how can I believe any of it? I don t know what your struggles are But I m hoping today s Bible passage will make a difference. Please turn to Acts 9: the story of Paul s conversion.

2 2 A few years ago Margy and I went to an Anglican Church in Adelaide one Sunday morning. The passage for the day was Acts 9. The minister astounded us! He said, This passage shows us that change is always a slow process. Nothing ever happens quickly in the Christian life! Then he spent most of the sermon talking about his favourite saint. I kind of think he missed the point! In this passage, Paul, also known as Saul, comes to faith in Jesus in the most spectacular way possible. His life is turned totally upside down in an instant! And, as we read the story of this momentous day in Paul s life, I hope that it will help us make some headway in our own spiritual journeys. My first observation is this: 1. We can take heart No one is too bad for Jesus! We first meet Paul at the beginning of Ch 8, where he lends his support to the murder of Stephen, the first follower of Jesus to be martyred. Paul s rage against Christians continues in Ch 9: Meanwhile, Saul, still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord s disciples, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he

3 3 might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. Paul wants to wipe away this stain, this blot, on the pure heart of his understanding of the Jewish faith: Jesus cannot possibly be the Messiah! He s dead for a start. His disciples are deluded, and dangerous. We need a final solution and deal with this lot before they get totally out-of-hand. Many years later, when he wrote his first letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul said, I am the least of the Apostles. I do not even deserve to be called an Apostle. Because I persecuted the Church of God. Let me read to you an excerpt about Stephen Lungu: At the age of 7, Stephen Lungu was abandoned by his mother in the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe s capital city. He grew up hating the white people who governed his country, and hating Christians in particular.

4 4 Stephen s growing anger found focus in the Nationalist Youth League which advocated the violent overthrow of the white government in pre-independent Zimbabwe. One evening he came upon a Christian evangelist preaching at a tent meeting. He said to his gang, "At 7pm I will whistle, and everybody in the gang start throwing your stones and petrol bombs into the entrance I want everyone inside that tent to die." But, at 3 minutes to 7, standing inside the tent he was about to set on fire, Stephen heard the message about Jesus understood it and was converted. Stephen Lungu was disciple and later became a Christian pastor and a leader of an organisation called African Enterprise. This enemy of God s people became one of their good friends! And so did Paul, nearly 2000 years ago! If Paul can become God s friend, so can we. Many years later he wrote, I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins. There is nothing you or I have thought or said or done that will make God love us less! Please don t allow your guilt and shame to stand between you and a holy God. Come back to Jesus. Trust your life to him. And find the forgiveness he offers.

5 5 That s the first point, Take heart. No one is too bad for Jesus. Secondly, 2. Draw strength We have good reason to trust Jesus. I met a man in London 5 years ago who claims that he heard Jesus voice. Abu says that Jesus spoke to him one day, completely out of the blue. Abu s father was the Grand Mufti, the leading Islamic cleric in his country. Abu, his son, was training to become an Imam, a religious teacher. And in the reading room of the mosque, where he was studying, he heard a voice call out to him Abu, I am Jesus. I want you to follow me. Abu thought Satan was getting at him, so he went to the bathroom to ritually cleanse himself. In the bathroom, Jesus voice came a second time: Abu, I am Jesus. I want you to follow me. Abu left, found some Christians, learned what it meant to follow Jesus, became a Christian, told his dad, was thrown out of his home, was later left for dead by some of his old Moslem friends, placed in the city morgue, found by a Christian missionary doctor who realised Abu wasn t really dead, was treated, smuggled out of the country and given refuge in England. When I met him, he was studying law and was hoping to become and evangelist to Moslems. Abu heard our Lord s voice. So did Paul:

6 6 Acts 9:3 Paul heard Jesus voice. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? 5 Who are you, Lord? Saul asked. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, he replied. 6 Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. But he also saw him in that bright flash of light, shortly before he was struck blind and led into the city of Damascus. It is amazing to me how much the Lord involves others in his business. He could have told Paul directly all that he needed to know But Jesus used Ananias to explain to Paul what was happening, and what was to come next. Ananias very nervously does what the Lord tells him, and goes to the house where Paul sits in complete darkness, with a message from the Lord, which we ll look at in just a moment. Let s take it from vs 17: 17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul s eyes, and he could see again. He got

7 7 Jesus appeared to Paul. Paul saw Jesus up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength. And in his letter to the Corinthians, he says that his visual experience of the risen Jesus lined up perfectly with what more than 500 others also experienced when they say Jesus with their own eyes, alive and well, after he died on a cross. If you don t believe me, says Paul, Go to Israel and speak them Many of those 500 eyewitnesses are still alive. Most Christians of the centuries, by far the great majority in fact, never saw Jesus while they were living here on earth. Most of us have not seen Jesus. Yet Paul expects us to trust our lives to Jesus, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses whom we have not met. It s not the proof we might want. But it is enough evidence for us to take a step of faith in our spiritual journey. And when we do take that step of faith, we find that Jesus is there to support us, even though we can t yet see him. We come to know the Lord through his Spirit. So, take heart Draw strength And thirdly, 3. Keep reading Confident in God s Word

8 8 If you were God, who would you get to write the Bible for you? Moses? Yes! Samuel the prophet? Yes! King David or King Solomon? Yes! The prophets who laid their lives on the line for speaking the truth? Yes! But what about your worst enemy? I need someone to write most of the New Testament Ahh! Better call Saul! I don t think so! Ananias certainly wouldn t have thought so! Yet, look at vs 13: 13 Lord, Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. 14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name. 15 But the Lord said to Ananias, Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of

9 9 Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. Jesus trusts, not just his words, but his reputation to Paul. Paul the emissary, the Apostle, becomes the key, the lynch pin, in Jesus mission to a lost world. Paul goes to that world, he proclaims Jesus, he stands up for Jesus, he suffers terribly, and with his letters writes most of the books of the New Testament. I sometimes hear people say what I m ashamed to say that I said when I was a young man, Don t worry about Paul said! What s really important is what Jesus said! Paul s a homophobic misogynist! You ll find any number of theological colleges around the world that will teach that. And it s not a new idea Paul had his detractors in the 1 st century. But what does Jesus say about Paul? Let s read it again: This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name (ie I m trusting my reputation to Paul). Our Lord steers us in the direction of an underlying trust in Paul s words and, because of that, an underlying trust in Paul s writings. I am not saying that everything Paul said makes perfect sense.

10 10 Even the Apostle Peter acknowledged that some of what Paul said was difficult to understand. Ignorant people twist his writings, said Peter, as they do the other Scriptures. Can I suggest that if you find yourself reacting against something in the Bible, don t stop reading it altogether. Keep wrestling with that passage, that particular issue. You can be sure that others have done the same. Keep reading what you do understand. Expose yourself to the challenge, the comfort, the confrontation that God s Word brings to our lives even though you have to learn to live with loose ends. Conclusion: I hope today s Bible passage has helped with some of the roadblocks. We haven t touched on all of them: relationship difficulties, hurts, and big questions like suffering and evil. What we have done is to listen to God s reminder that no one is too bad for him, that our Lord s resurrection is a good enough reason to go on trusting him, and that we can have a basic trust/confidence in Paul s letters. Whatever it is that holds you back from making headway, take it to the Lord. Talk to him about it. Talk to others about it. Find God s forgiveness, God s help and God s strength. And if you need someone to pray for you, please come and ask us at the end of the service.