What’s Your Story?
Acts 22:1-21
The New Testament in a Year sermon series
Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA
February 12th, 2012
There was once a very proper lady who began planning a week-long camping retreat for her and her Baptist Church group. She wrote to a campground for reservations. She wanted to make sure that the campground was fully equipped and modern, but couldn’t bring herself to write the word “toilet” in her letter – she was too proper for that. So, she decided on the old-fashioned term “Bathroom Commode.” Once written down she still was not comfortable. Finally she decided on the abbreviation “B.C.” and wrote, “Does your campground have its own “B.C.?”
When the campground manager received the letter, he couldn’t figure out what she meant by “B.C.” He showed it to several of the campers, one of whom suggested the lady was obviously referring to a Baptist Church since there was a letterhead on the paper which referred to a Baptist Church.
So he sent this reply: “Dear Madam: The B.C. is located nine miles from the campground in a beautiful grove of trees. I admit it is quite a distance if you are in the habit of going regularly. No doubt you will be pleased to know that it will seat 350 people at one time, and it is open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday of each week.
Some folks like to take their lunch and make a day of it. The acoustics are very good, so everyone can hear even the quietest passages. It may interest you to know that my daughter met her husband there. Unfortunately my wife is ill and has not been able to attend regularly. It’s been a good six months since she last went. It pains her very much not to be able to go more often. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, especially in cold weather.
Perhaps I could accompany you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks who will be there.”
Quite a story, isn’t it? It’s amazing how a good story can hold our attention. Everyone likes a good story. It doesn’t matter if it’s a true story or fictional. It can be a written story, acted on stage, on the silver screen or on the television. It can be funny, serious, sad…it doesn’t matter. If the story is good, people will follow along.
I believe that each and every one of us has at least one good story to tell. In fact, I know that’s true. The story that each of us has to tell is the story of your life, and how God has touched and shaped it. Every person who has put their trust in Jesus has had their life changed in some way: from a life of lies to one of truth; from selfishness to selflessness; from hate to love; from pride to humility; from coldness to compassion; from sinner to sinner saved by grace. No Christian has completed that transformation or leads a perfect life. We all stumble. But by the grace of God, for those of us who trust Jesus, we are a new creation, and there’s a story to tell. There is no more attractive story to tell than stories of transformation, second chances, re-birth, and new life. And people who love and follow Jesus have those stories to tell.
The Apostle Paul had just such a story. It’s a story of Jesus’ radical love changing Paul’s life 180 degrees. It’s told earlier in Acts by Luke, the narrator and writer, and in Acts 22 we get Paul’s own retelling of the story (he does so again in Acts 26, too). So join with me as we look at Acts 22:1-21 this morning:
‘Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense that I now make before you.’
When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then he said:‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city [Jerusalem] at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. From them I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.
‘While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I answered, “Who are you, Lord?” Then he said to me, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.” Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I asked, “What am I to do, Lord?” The Lord said to me, “Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.” Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took my hand and led me to Damascus.
‘A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there, came to me; and standing beside me, he said, “Brother Saul, regain your sight!” In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.”
‘After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw Jesus saying to me, “Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.” And I said, “Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.” Then he said to me, “Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles”’ (Acts 22:1-21).
That’s Paul’s story. And he does a couple of things that we should note as he tells his story of transformation. First, he identifies with his Jewish audience, going to great lengths to highlight his own Jewish background. He does this in several ways: First, rather than speaking in Greek, he speaks in Hebrew, the language of their Scriptures and of Judaism. Then he clearly states, “I’m a Jew;” then, although he was born a Roman citizen in the city of Tarsus, he states that he was brought up in Jerusalem; he trained thoroughly in the Jewish faith under one of the most respected Jewish scholars of the day, Gamaliel; He was just as zealous for God as any of them standing before him; He was so zealous that he persecuted people who followed Jesus. Then, after his encounter with Jesus, he sought out Ananias, a fellow Jew who had become a follower of Jesus but maintained respectability among his Jewish friends. Then he returned to Jerusalem to minister first to other Jews.
In essence, he’s saying, “See, I’m not so different from you. In fact, I used to be one of you, and in many ways I still am one of you.” He’s not making things up; he’s simply highlighting the facets of his life that he has in common with the current audience so as to break down some of the barriers that they have put up against him.
Now, all that being said, he doesn’t pretend that he’s still the same as them; He is also different. And that difference is because of his faith in Jesus. For his audience, they saw God as the lover of themselves, the Jewish people, the nation of Israel. But because of Jesus, Paul sees God as the lover of all people, even the Gentiles. The people in his audience wanted to keep the love of God for themselves, to hide it away in their hearts, never to be shared with anyone else. But Paul wants to share the love of God with people far and wide. He’s compelled by Jesus to love people no matter who they are. Jesus has made all the difference in his life and given him a new beginning, and a new future, and he’s heading out far away to the Gentiles to bring them the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And so: What Paul is doing here is he’s telling his story in a way that will connect with his audience and point them to Jesus. And we might be tempted to be a little skeptical about this and say, “Well, sure…his life was depending on it right there. They wanted to kill him. He was going to do whatever it took to save his life.” But the fact is, Paul told his story and the story of God’s love in Christ everywhere he went. And: His motive was never to save his own life; his motive was to allow Jesus to save other lives. Paul’s want other people to know Jesus Christ in the same way as he does – as his Lord and savior; as the one who loves him, forgives him, and transforms him into something new.
And because his overriding motive is to help others know that same transformative love, he tells his story so that others would be drawn to it. He connects with the people, showing how he’s like them, but he’s clear about what makes him different. He’s not “holier than thou.” He’s not condemning. He doesn’t belittle. He’s not arrogant. He simply states how Jesus changed his life. So out of those observations about Paul’s story and his telling of it, there are three things I want to highlight for our own personal application.
First, if your story and the story of Jesus Christ haven’t intersected and joined together to be one and the same story, then, there is no time like the present. God is the author of life; why would we ignore the author from the story of our own lives? Paul had this encounter with Jesus, and from that point forward, Jesus’ story became his story. You may not encounter a blinding light and have a voice from heaven like Paul did, but the result of a new beginning and a complete overhaul of your life with Jesus are just as possible. And as we continue to follow Jesus and allow His life to influence ours, our lives will look more and more like his: selfless, forgiving, truth-telling, and loving. That can begin today, this morning.
Second of all, when we have given our lives over to Jesus, then there’s a story that needs to be told. There’s a story of God’s transformational love touching a life in profound ways…a story of a new beginning. And we can tell those stories, and we can share them in a way that connects other people to Jesus. For the person who’s spiritually confused, we can share about our own spiritual journey and the paths we explored; for the person who’s struggling with a particular sin, we can share about our own struggles with something similar; for the person who’s just kind of lost in the world, doesn’t have any sense of purpose, no direction in life, we can share about our own wandering in the world. In other words, those are opportunities to identify with them and say, “I’ve was once there, too.” And then we can share how Jesus brought us out of those places, redeemed us from sin, gave us purpose in life, and so forth. We can share how God’s people, the Church, encouraged and supported us and came along side us in our times of need. Again, it’s not that we’re perfect – we all have struggles and challenges and slip-ups – but we can tell the story of how we have been brought from one place in life to another, new and better place.
The third thing for us today will help us to be prepared to accomplish the telling of our story from the first two points: Today, or some other time this week, I encourage each of us to take the time to memorize our story of Jesus and his love for us, and then practice telling it to someone. Memorizing it might sound funny, because it’s your life, and your story. Who needs to memorize their own life? But you may find it helpful. And practicing telling it to your spouse or a friend or the dog, or whoever…might sound kind of funny, too. But if you’ve never said the story out loud to someone, you might find it helpful. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).
For me, there are different facets of my story that I might tell depending on the situation. I’ve committed to memory something about each of those facets that I can easily recall and will trigger that part of the story. So I just remember four simple things: Old fashioned switchboard operators; Sun Valley, ID; my back; and my throat. I’ve shared all of those at different times in the past five years here at WPC, so I won’t go into them now. But those four things are all triggers for me to be able to recall four different ways that Jesus has totally transformed my life, and I can tell each of them in 3 minutes or less.
This past Wednesday night at The Stand, there was a group of us sitting around the table talking about a portion of Acts 23. And it got us all sharing how God has made himself known to us in our lives. It was a very uplifting and encouraging conversation. That’s not to say that the stories were all “happy-happy; joy-joy.” People shared stories of the presence of God in the hospital room at the death of loved ones, at memorial services, through their children’s faith, and through physical changes to their bodies…and it was amazing to hear how God had touched people’s lives. And those things were simply portions of the stories of their lives. So let’s take time to make sure that we know our story, and are comfortable telling it.
Because: each of us has a story to tell. You have a story to tell about God. Get to know it. Write it down. Memorize it. And then share it in a way that connects with the people that God puts in your life who are in need of His love. Although each of our stories are unique, they’re all good ones that tell about the redeeming love of God in Christ: In fact, that’s what makes it a good story – it’s really not about us. Our stories are really about Jesus Christ who died on the cross and conquered death. That’s the ultimate victory story, the ultimate story of redemption and new life. And there is no better story to tell than that. So let’s tell it. Join me in prayer…Amen.
