Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, June 9th, 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
For the early Christian Church Saul of Tarsus was their worst nightmare. He held the coats when one of the first christian martyrs, Stephen, was stoned to death. Saul was educated, extreme and totally committed to wiping Christians from the face of the earth.
Then one day, on the road to Damascus, Saul encounters Jesus, as a voice asking him 'Why are you persecuting me?' He is temporarily struck down with blindness, and is changed from being Saul, the great persecutor of Christianity, to Paul the great defender and evangelist of the Christian faith.
Only one word suffices to explain what happened to Paul. Grace! In his own words from Galatian's this morning he says, God 'Called me through His grace'. Grace transformed every thing about his life.
The account Paul gives us in Galatians One about his transformation is a little different from that we are given in the Book of Acts. You can get the impression from reading Acts that it was a case of Saul, on the road, blinded by the light, reaches Damascus, meets Ananaias - becomes a preacher and saves the world. 'Boom' - there it is. Instant hero.
The account in Galatians is subtly different and involves Paul having to spend time trying to come to terms with what had happened to him and the revelation of God given in the scriptures; Paul putting into practice what he now believed as he is befriended by those whom once he persecuted, and finally, Paul returning home to confront his past and give evidence of the reality of the transforming grace that had gripped his life.
The point I'm making today is that grace, amazing and unmerited and transforming as it may be, does not just happen. Grace takes time. Grace works through a process that includes; commitment to scripture, communion with others and confronting the past. Think about some of those things!
Commitment to Scripture
Galatians 1:16 (Paul speaking of what happened to him after his revelation of Jesus Christ) “I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away, at once into Arabia”.
Just as Jesus after His baptism was led into the wilderness to prepare for His ministry, so Paul is led to the desert of Arabia to ground himself in the scriptures that he may find his center in the will of God. Up until this point in his life, Paul had read the scriptures, as it were, with a veil upon them. They kind of made sense, but not really. They were hard to put into practice, but if anyone could do it, it was going to be him.
Because he had never encountered Jesus, he never understood all the Old Testament passages that were fulfilled through Christ's coming into the world. He writes in a letter to the Corinthian church, about the blindness he once shared with his Jewish contemporaries in understanding the scripture, “But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” (2 Corinthians 3:14-16 NIV)
In the gospels, when Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say the son of Man is?” Peter comes to make the amazing confession of the Lord, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God”. And Jesus looks him straight in the eye and says, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17 NIV)
When after the resurrection two disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus, down-hearted and disillusioned, it is Jesus who draws along side them and begins to open up to them the scriptures that they had known since childhood, in such a way that they saw, what they had never seen before, that the Scriptures pointed to Him! “They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32 NIV)
The point being made here is that in order to understand the Scriptures we need the help of God's Holy Spirit to reveal the truth that they contain. Bible study is not an intellectual exercise, but a conversation with God. Without the presence of God, interpreting and applying Scripture to our lives, we study, as it were... under a veil. Only the action of God unveils the scripture.
Paul headed into Arabia. All the Scripture knowledge that he had in his head needed to make it's way into his heart. All his life he had missed out the one important ingredient that actually made sense of the scriptures - a living relationship with Jesus Christ.
He goes to no man on earth, not even to one of the apostles, to be confirmed in that truth. He turns to God and to the Scriptures, and they, in tandem, impart to him grace that transforms him from being blinded by the light, to someone who knows Jesus as the way, truth and life.
For scripture to come alive to us, for Scripture to be a force for grace that is transforming our lives, we need the presence of God to be acting as interpreter. Otherwise Scripture becomes just knowledge for knowledge's sake.
And that step, the step of moving from being in a place where the Bible becomes, not some old dusty book, but an album of God's messages to our hearts, is one that only happens through grace. For our part it involves a willingness to listen and obey, faith and trust that God can and will speak to us, and believing that the living Lord Jesus Christ walks with us in our lives.
But Paul doesn't stay in Arabia reading the good books. He leaves Arabia and seeks...
Communion with others
Paul heads to Damascus and works alongside the church leaders preaching the gospel. Eventually he heads to Jerusalem and for a few days meets with Peter and with James, the earthly brother of Jesus who by then had become a leader in the early church. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for some of those conversations!
'Peter, what was it like when you went up the mountain and saw Elijah and Moses talking with Jesus? 'James, how come you never got who Jesus really was when you were growing up?' 'Whatever became of Mary?'
Paul, through the revelation he had received on the road and in the desert of Arabia, now knew, beyond any personal doubt, that the gospel was true. He threw himself into the task of sharing with others what he had discovered. The great persecutor became the great proclaimer.
As you can imagine, it took a while for the leaders in the early church to accept him. How do you get beyond all your fears about somebody who has previously betrayed you and been the darkest of all opponents? Sure, we believe in grace, but can grace really be that trans-formative? What if it's a trick? What if there's a relapse?
There's a telling passage in Acts 9: 26-27 'When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.'
Not only does transforming grace take time, but it has to be a two way traffic. We have to extend grace towards those who extend grace to us. Paul's new friends were stretched to accept him as friend. But they did it! He 'gets by with a little help from his friends'.
Whenever we welcome new people into our lives, whether on a personal level or as a church fellowship, God calls us to extend our grace muscles. Because it's going to bring about change. And if there's one thing we don't handle well, it's change.
Paul changed the whole character of Christianity. Till he came along they thought that it was mostly a religion for scattered Jewish people. Only under Paul's influence did it become a religion that truly was for Gentiles as well. That was a 'Big' Change.
The final thing we see in Paul's journey of transforming grace is that of;
Confronting the past
He goes into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. This was his homelands. Jesus once told the folk of his hometown , "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home." (Mark 6:4 NIV). But Paul feels he has to make that journey.
We never read of him actually managing to found a church in his hometown, but we do read in verse 23, 24 “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” And we hear Paul telling us “They glorified God because of me.” Even those who knew him the most could not deny that a change had come over him. They weren't prepared to let him build a church there, yet they could see that grace had the power to transform. Grace takes time.
I have been in ministry now for most of my life. Yet when I go back to my hometown I think there are still a few old friends who consider it to be just a phase I'm going through and wonder when I'll get a proper job. Whilst of course I pray for them, I feel that if ever they do embrace Christianity it will be through someone else's ministry rather than mine. They knew me too well when I was without the church, yet I hope they at least recognize that I'm probably the better for being with the church!
Sometimes we do have to confront our past. If nothing else, it keeps us humble. It reminds us, not just how far we have come, but that we have limitations. It recalls us to see that we are on a journey that takes a lifetime and that some portions of it, we would rather forget. Despite the fact of his position of leadership in the church, Paul would never escape the fact that he had once done the church a great deal of damage.
Great lessons in this passage about transforming grace. Grace takes time. Grace works through a process that involves; Commitment to scripture, Communion with others and Confronting the past.
- As we try and make sense of our own lives, Paul gives us some wonderful insight. We can be guided by God's Word, as long as we make Scripture study a conversation with God rather than just an intellectual exercise.
- We can get by with a little help from our friends, but in the process need to think about how we can be friends to others.
- We need to confront the past, if only to remind ourselves that we all face limitations and that if we have any bragging rights, then let us boast of what the grace of God has done for us!
Rev Adrian J. Pratt
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