Changed Lives:
Religion to Relationship: Antagonist to Evangelist

Pastor Burcham's Sermon

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may recognize the name Chuck Coleson in a number of different ways. You might recognize the name Chuck Coleson from the political arena. You might remember Chuck Coleson was the Chief Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973, that Chuck Coleson was one of the infamous Watergate Seven, that he was one of the ones who was convicted in the whole Watergate scandal. You might recall that Chuck Coleson was called Richard Nixon's hatchet man. He was once supposedly quoted as saying, “I'd walk over my own grandmother to get Richard Nixon reelected.” You might recognize the Chuck Coleson who leaked confidential FBI files out on so-called opponents of President Nixon to insure he would get reelected. You might recognize Chuck Coleson from the political Watergate arena.

Maybe you recognize the name Chuck Coleson as you walked around the Christian book store and you've seen his name on various books, Chuck Coleson who heads up Prison Fellowship Ministry, a ministry that has dedicated itself to talking to the prisoners in jail the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. You might recognize Angel Tree, a project Prison Fellowship Ministry does. We've had it here at Christmas time, where you can buy a gift for a prisoner's child so they don't have to go through the holiday season without anything underneath the tree. You might recognize Chuck Coleson, the Christian founder of that ministry, the writer who unabashedly, unapologetically proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. You might recognize the name Chuck Coleson from that arena.

You might think I'm talking about two different men with the same name, but I'm not. Chuck Coleson is a living example of the power of God that changed lives.

Chuck Coleson, just before he was to be arrested in the Watergate scandal, had a friend of his, Tom Phillips, stop by and give him a copy of C. S. Lewis' Mirror Christianity . That's the seed that was planted, the seed that was planted about the life-changing power of Jesus in his life. By the time he would come to trial, he would plead no contest. He would go off and do his jail time and, immediately coming out of jail, he would begin Prison Fellowship Ministries, something he has dedicated the rest of his life to, to minister to those prisoners, to bring to them the life-changing power of Christ. The same way it changed his life, he wants it to change their lives, to ministering to their families, to ministering to the victims and their families. That's the Chuck Coleson who is a living example of the power of God to take the least likely candidate and turn his life around. It changed his life.

This week, we conclude our series of changed lives. And we're going to look at another unlikely character, an unlikely character to be a follower of Jesus. In fact, we're going to look at a man who dedicated his life to wiping out anyone who did follow Jesus, the man who may have been the single most threat to the early Christian church in the 1 st Century A.D., a man who saw it as his mission to arrest Christians and to get his vote of confidence when they were to die. We're talking about Saul of Tarsus and how, when he encountered Jesus, his life was changed, changed so dramatically that now he would be called Paul. This morning, we look at Saul who went on to become Paul or the antagonist who became the evangelist.

Now I think all of us probably have heard the name Paul. It seems like a week doesn't go by in worship that we don't read something he wrote. After all, half of the books in the New Testament were written by Paul. Some of those were to churches he started. Others were churches he was ministering to. A couple of the letters were to young pastors that were underneath his tutelage. We know Paul, the missionary, Paul the evangelist but how much do we know about Saul, the man before he encountered Jesus?

Well, scripture and history help us out with that because, if we're going to understand the dramatic change that took place, we really need to understand who was Saul. We know Saul grew up in Tarsus . Tarsus was a major city in the Roman empire . In fact, it was a cultural center. It was an educational center for Greek teaching and philosophy, so we know, in his early years, he had a classical training, a training most any citizen would have. We also know his father must have been of some sort of influence because scripture tells us that Paul says he was born a Roman citizen. Maybe that doesn't mean a whole lot to us but, in 1 st Century A.D., if you were a Jew, you weren't a Roman citizen. And if you did happen to become a Roman citizen, it cost you an awful lot of money and it cost you an awful lot of time. For someone to be born as a Roman citizen and all the rights and privileges that come along with that, which at that time were many, that was highly unusual. So there was something with Saul's family that earned him the right to be born a Roman citizen. Because of that, the best of the best was afforded to him, the best education in Tarsus . But then, in his teen years, he is shipped off to Jerusalem where now he is going to study the law and he's going to be under the tutelage of the most famous teacher, the famous Rabbi at that time. He's going to become, are you ready for this, a Pharisee.

Remember, last week, we talked a little bit about Pharisees. Let's take a peek at scripture as Paul describes himself and his background. We take a look at Philippians. He says, “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel , of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee. As for zeal, persecuting the church as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” He is a Hebrew among Hebrews. He's a Pharisee. And as far as legalism, he's faultless in that. On another occasion, he said this, “I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Felicia but brought up in this city,” he's referring to Jerusalem , “under Gamaliel. I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as anyone of you today.”

Saul was a highly trained, highly educated individual, both in the classical education but also, and maybe more importantly, in the Pharisetical education. Remember what a Pharisee is? We went into depth last week, but let's just recap real quick. A Pharisee was a person who was highly respected in society at that time among Jews. A Pharisee was an educated man, a man who dedicated his life and took a vow to dedicate his life to studying and living according to the law. Now the law is not just the Ten Commandments as we think about it. The law for them was the first five books of the Old Testament. And they believe, for every situation in life, every circumstance, those five books prescribe how you should act, what you should do, and what you shouldn't do. Anything they didn't cover were in the two commentaries about that, the Mishnah and the Talmed, volumes of work that listed out to the nth degree. You remember it told you what knot you could tie and what knot you couldn't tie on the Sabbath, how far you could walk on the Sabbath and how far you couldn't walk on the Sabbath, to the nth degree.

Saul is a Pharisee but not just a Pharisee. He's a Pharisee among Pharisees because he went and was under the tutelage of Gamaliel. If you want to put it in today's perspective, he went to Harvard Law School , okay? He went to the best of the best and was trained under the best teacher at that time, which means he had a zeal and a passion for God's law, that he believed he was serving God, that he was pleasing to God by following God's law to the nth degree. So much was his passion, if you disagreed with God's law, if you disagreed with the Jewish tradition, then you were wrong, you were blaspheming God, you were an affront to God, and he would go so far as to say, “And you needed to be removed from God's presence.” We have Saul the Pharisee but we also have Saul the zealot.

Saul describes himself as having a zeal for the teachings of our fathers, a zeal for God's law. Now for us today, if someone has zeal, he has enthusiasm. He has a passion for something. That's kind of nice. No, no, no. 1 st Century A.D., if you were zealous for something, think holy war. That's what it meant. You want to know what it is be a zealot, to be zealous for your religion? Think about the Middle East today and watch the evening news. You'll know what it is. What motivates people to strap bombs on themselves and blow themselves up? Because they are zealous. They have a zeal for their religion. This is Saul. He has that kind of zeal for what he believes. Therefore, Christianity is the number one threat to his way of life. He sees them as a cult that is infiltrating and taking faithful people away from the one true God. He describes it this way. He says, “I persecuted the followers of this way to their death, arresting both men and women, and throwing them into prison. As also the High Priest and all the Council can testify, I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.” On another occasion, he described himself this way. He says, “I, too, was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth and that is just what I did in Jerusalem . On the authority of the Chief Priest, I put many of the saints in prison. And when they were put to death, I cast my vote for them. Many a time, I went out from one synagogue to another to have them punished and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.” He says, “In my obsession against them.” He is obsessed with the fact that he is going to wipe out Christians anywhere and everywhere. He starts in Jerusalem . He is going down to Damascus . He's going to gather them up. He's going to arrest them, men, women, he doesn't care, throw them in jail, and, when the vote comes saying, “Should we put them to death?” he holds his hand high and says, “Put them to death.” That's Saul, the Pharisee. That's Saul, the zealot. That's Saul who is on the road to Damascus .

And then he encounters Jesus. Saul has his marching orders in hand. Everything he did in Jerusalem , he's going to do in Damascus . He's going to go from synagogue to synagogue and gather up anyone that even hints of the fact they might believe in Christ, and he's going to haul their butts back to jail in Jerusalem . But, on the way, a flash of light. He falls to his knees. And a voice from heaven, “Saul, what are you doing, Pal? What do you think you're up to? Do you think you're following me? You're persecuting me, Saul.” For three days, God lets him cool his jets in Damascus and just think about it.

Often times, dramatic change happens in our life when something just rocks our world, when something just shakes us down to the core. Whether it's losing your sight and hearing a voice from heaven, whether it's the threat of being thrown into jail for a political scandal, it's the loss of a relationship, the loss of a job, an illness, your own or someone else's, often times God brings about change upon the opportunity of something dramatic happening in your life to shake you up and to make you stop and think for a moment. So it was with Saul. Three days, he's blind. Three days, he doesn't eat. Three days, he doesn't drink. And then Saul becomes Paul. Scripture records it for us this way in Acts 9. Ananias is one of the followers of Jesus who was in Damascus , and Ananias is sent to Saul. “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 you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.' Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.” From that moment on, scripture never again calls him Saul. He is now Paul. Such a dramatic change has happened in his life. He has been one who has been working tirelessly against the church and now he will work tirelessly for the church. Such a change that he can't even be known by the same name anymore. He is no longer Saul. He has become Paul, a changed man, an unlikely candidate to be a follower of Jesus and yet he goes on to be an evangelistic missionary to most of Asia at that time.

An amazing story of God's power to change a person. He becomes Paul the preacher. Talk about the courage of this man. Scripture says, after he comes to faith and is baptized, he regains his strength, he goes to the synagogue of Damascus . Now imagine when he first walked in. Let's paint the scene. He walks in. More than likely, the guys are patting him on the back. “Hey, Saul, how's it going? We heard about your work in Jerusalem . Like your reputation. Can't wait to see what you do here in Damascus . I'm really getting irritated about those Christians. They just keep taking people away. Yeah, I can't wait to hear what Saul has to say.” And then Saul gets up and he gives a testimony about how Jesus changed his life. He gives a testimony saying Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He is the Son of God and only through Him will salvation be found. Can you imagine the impact on the synagogue at that time? Scripture records for us that it baffled the Jews. Those are the words it used. He baffled the Jews. They didn't know what to make of him. What happened to Saul? Finally, in Damascus , they said, “We don't know what to do. Let's kill him.” I guess that was commonplace back then, I don't know. Didn't know what to do with someone, just kill him. So he has to escape and he's out of the city. He goes off to Jerusalem . He goes to the synagogues there. “Hey, look everyone, Saul's back.” He gives the same testimony there. Scripture says he confounded the Jews. They didn't know what to do with him. So, like Damascus , they decided to kill him. And he has to escape from the city once again. He is Paul, the preacher, unashamedly, unabashedly preaching the name of Jesus Christ and that salvation can only be found in Him.

He goes on to be Paul the missionary. Page through the New Testament, the churches in Rome he wrote to in Ephesus , in Corinth , in Philippi , in Colossi. The pastors he trained, Timothy, Titus. He becomes, all of a sudden, the greatest missionary of all time. All the passion he had to work against the church is now funneled into spreading the church and to spreading the news of Jesus. Paul is a changed man.

God is still changing people today. Even the most unlikely characters, God is still changing lives today. It's tempting. It's tempting on our part to underestimate God. It's not that we don't believe God can change a life, but we don't think he probably will change this one. It's easy to underestimate what God is going to do. It was the same back in Paul's day. It records for us Paul goes to Jerusalem and it says, “When he came to Jerusalem , he tried to join the disciples but they were all afraid of him not believing he was a disciple.” Now, frankly, I can't blame them for that one. Some of their relatives have probably gotten carted off to prison because of this guy. But they doubted and they couldn't believe God would actually change his life.

The same was true for Chuck Coleson. When Chuck Coleson came out publicly and said he had come to faith in Jesus, that he was going to dedicate his life to this new ministry, the papers lambasted him, calling him a fraud, calling it a cheap trick on his part, just a ploy to try to get some sympathy, maybe an easier sentence or maybe save his name for some sake. Nobody really wanted to believe it. It's easy to underestimate the power God has to change lives. It's easy for us to convince ourselves the neighbor next door will never step foot in a church. It just won't happen. It would take an act of God to move him to come to a church. We underestimate God and we say, “We're not going to talk about our faith in front of that one uncle. He'll just come unglued like he did last year in front of cousin so and so.” And, “I can't invite my friend to youth group. He'll never speak to me again if I do that.” We underestimate the power of God. We say it would take a miracle to change that person. It would take an act of God for that person to come to faith. What do you think every conversion is if not an act of God? It's a miracle that I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It's an act of God that you put your faith and hope and trust in Jesus.

We don't come to God. God comes to us. God seeks us out. We don't change on our own. God changes us. It's a miracle of God, an act of God that each one of us has come to faith, either through the power of His word or through the mystery of holy baptism. Each one of us has come to faith in God because He came to us and He changed our hearts. God is in the miracle-making business. God has changed your life. God has changed the lives of the most unlikely characters and God will still change lives today, and He does it in the same way. He uses people as His instruments, as His vehicle to take the news to them.

The unsung hero about Saul becoming Paul has got to be Ananias. Ananias is sitting quietly in his home, minding his own business. He's heard about this Saul character coming wondering how he's going to handle all that and, all of a sudden, God says, “Listen, Ananias, there's a guy who's blind. I want you to go and restore his sight. By the way, he's from Tarsus . His name is Saul.” Now can you blame Ananias for questioning God on this one? “Are you right on this one, God?” As foolish as that may be, I think I'd have said the same thing. “Are you positive on this one?” But the fact is, Ananias went. And did you notice what he called him when he walked in the door. He said, “Brother Saul.” He recognized and accepted him as a fellow brother in Christ. He believed God could change his life, even the life of Saul.

Why did Tom Phillips give a copy of Mirror Christianity to Nixon's hatchet man? Why would he give a copy of that to Chuck Coleson? Because he believed God could change lives and God could change Chuck's life just the way he had changed his life.

God still changes lives, and He will use you and He will use me as His instruments to do so, use us as His instruments to change lives, whether it's a friend, a relative, a coworker. The question is will you be the Ananias for them? Will you be the Tom Phillips in their life?

Think of someone you know that you've written off saying, “There's no way they'll ever come to church.” Could that be a life God will change? Could you be the Ananias? Could you be the Tom Phillips?

It's time we start believing in the power of God to change lives. He's changed our lives, and He can change any life. Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church