3 EASTER 07 C

Five year old Becky answered the door when the Census taker came by. She told the Census taker that her daddy was a doctor and wasn’t home, because he was performing an appendectomy. “My,” said the Census taker, “that sure is a big word for such a little girl. Do you know what it means?” “Sure! Fifteen hundred bucks, and that doesn’t even include the anesthesiologist!”

Children often know more than we think they do. That is quite often the case when it comes to God. Children have little trouble believing in God. I’ve even known children that I would say have a relationship with God.

Adults, on the other hand, seem to have more trouble believing in God. It is kind of the same principle as children learning a foreign language much easier than adults. Children have an ability to believe and trust because they have not become cynical, overly rationalistic, or corrupted by the world.

Today, I want to talk to you about three different types of people. Those who don’t believe in God and have no relationship with him; those who believe in God but have no relationship with them; and those who believe in God and have a relationship with him.

God created human beings with a human spirit. That human spirit was originally designed to allow humans to have a relationship with the God who is Spirit. Sin, however, caused a genetic defect to be in every human spirit. That defect prevents humankind from having a relationship with the God who created them for that purpose. In order for God’s creation to be able to have the ability to again have a relationship with Him, God had to provide a way for reconciliation to happen, for that spiritual genetic defect to be cured. If God had not done that, then it would still be impossible to have a relationship with Him.

There are those who do not believe in God and thus do not know Him.

In the world surrounding the Jewish and Christian communities there were many people who did not believe in God. These were people who had never experienced God’s presence, heard Him speak to them in their hearts, nor recognized any evidence for the existence of God.

Though they were surrounded by the evidences for the existence of God in the creation around them, they did not believe. They viewed life simply from a humanistic perspective. They saw the intricacies of God’s creation, the diversity of the created order, the complexity of each aspect of the world in which they lived, and yet they did associate those things with a supernatural designer behind it all.

We see people like that today. They not only don’t believe in God, many actively seek to have any reference to God expunged from our schools, our cities, and our nation, even if it means rewriting history.

The Psalmist today says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, by the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts. He gathers up the waters of the ocean as in a waterskin and stores up the depths of the sea. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of Him.”

St. Paul says in Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

Even if there was not the amazing amount of evidence for the existence of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus or through all of the mighty things reportedly done by God, the Bible says that the creation around speaks to the existence of God. Persons who do not believe in God and do not have a relationship with Him are quite often unwilling to look at and think about the evidence all around them.

The second type of person we find in the world is the person who believes in God, but has never experienced this God, does not have a relationship with Him, and does not know Him personally.

I suspect Saul in our second lesson was like that. He knew there was a God, but God for him was reduced to a set of rules to be followed and rituals to be performed. God was out there somewhere, but one could not presume to have a relationship with Him.

There are many today, even some in the church, who believe there is a God, but they have not ever experienced His reality. He remains a divine concept. Some view this God as a divine watchmaker who wound up the universe and just kind of let it evolve and has not much to do with it.

Saul was trying to keep his religion from becoming contaminated which was good. But he lacked grace and love. Our lesson says, “Saul, still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples.”

This week we have been confronted with images and video of a deranged student who allowed the perceived hurts, rejections, injustices in his life to build up to the point where he went on a killing rampage. From the killers own words we hear him breathing murderous threats, even comparing himself to Jesus Christ. He seemed to believe in God but he did not have a relationship with him, nor did he allow his belief to affect his life in a positive way.

Many today, like Saul, in the name of the Lord are speaking with harshness, anger and venom. Their words and actions do not reflect that they have been touched by the grace and love of God.

Because they have never experienced God or have never been touched by His love, they come across as caustic, bitter and angry people, even though they may do good things, maybe even go to church.

The third type of person about whom I want to talk today is the person who has experienced God’s reality, who knows the Lord, and whose life gives evidence of that relationship. Saul became that type of person when Jesus appeared to him and said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul’s response indicates his distant relationship with God. “Who are you, Lord?” Jesus said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Saul experienced Jesus in a personal way. So powerful was this touch that Saul’s life was radically changed. He became a new creature. He was born again. He went from a self-righteous selfishness to a humble selflessness; from self-righteousness to a new righteousness in Christ; from pride to humility; from a killer of Christians to a maker of Christians.

Another person who had experienced Christ in a personal way was Ananias. He was just an ordinary lay person who wanted to be used by God – but not quite like this! God wanted him to approach this persecutor of Christians and lay hands on him and pray for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

In order to understand the feelings of Ananias about this mission we might imagine the feelings we would have if we were to hear that psychotic cannibal Hannibal Lector of “Silence of the Lambs” fame was reformed and we were asked to go talk to him- alone. We might well think in our minds that if we were to say the wrong thing we might become the appetizer for his next meal.

Beyond doubt, Ananias is one of the forgotten heroes of the Christian Church. If it be true that the Church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen the martyr, it is also true that the Church owes Paul to the brotherliness of Ananias.

To Ananias came a message from God that he must go and help Saul; and he is directed to the street called Straight. When that message came to Ananias it must have sounded mad to him. He might well have approached Saul with suspicion, as one doing an unpleasant task. No doubt he was praying that Saul might truly be changed.

In his book, The Second Touch, Keith Miller tells about a man who was in his middle thirties, but who was about at the end of his rope. He was a successful businessman, a husband and father. He was a good church man. In spite of all this, he hated the person he had become. He was contemplating suicide to get out of the rat race he was trying to live.

One day he met some people who were on fire for the Lord. Their lives were full, too, but they acted as if their lives were just beginning, rather than being all over. He liked what he saw in them and dedicated his life to Christ. He was starting his life all over again with new direction.

His wife went along. She dedicated her life to the Lord, too. Together they set out to win their children, but this was not easy. The life they had lived had driven their children from them.

One day, the 12-year-old boy, in his desperation, turned to his father for help. He was alone; he was in trouble at school. Nobody liked him anymore and he was afraid. “Dad, there is something different about you now. I think I need to know what it is.”

“Well, son,” he replied, “I have made a big mess out of my life and not long ago I asked God to take over and show me how to live it.”

“I think I’d like to do that too,” said the boy. He did just that and a whole new life opened up for him. The next day, the father left on a trip to New York. He was gone for two weeks. When he came home, the boy met him at the plane. His eyes were shining with excitement.

“Dad,” he exclaimed, “Do you know what God has done?” “No, what son?” the father asked.

“He’s changed every kid in my class.”

No doubt Ananias’ heart was changed as much as was Paul’s. Where he might have begun with recriminations; rather, the first words out of his mouth were “Brother Saul.”

What a welcome that was! It is one of the most majestic examples of Christian love. That is what Christ can produce in us.

Bryan Green, evangelism canon in the Anglican Church, tells that toward the end of one of his campaigns in America he asked at the last meeting if people would stand up and in a few words say just what the campaign had done for them. A black girl rose. Not a good speaker, she could only put a few sentences together and this is what she said, “Through this campaign I have found Christ and he made me able to forgive the man who murdered my father.”

He made me able to forgive…that is the very essence of Christianity. In Christ, Paul and Ananias, the men who had been divided by hate and fear, came together as brothers.

If Christ can change two people so radically as that, won’t you trust Him to change you and make you into vessel so full of His love that you will risk it all to share the loving Jesus with those who don’t believe in Him nor know Him and those who believe in Him but have not yet really come to know Him.

Maybe you are like the unbeliever today. Will you allow the living Christ to change you, make you into a new creature, to help you to be born again?

Maybe you are like Saul, full of self-righteousness, hate and fear. Let Christ change you today, like He did Saul, into a powerhouse for His kingdom.