Dr. Paul Brand was speaking
to a medical college in India on the words of Jesus: “Let your light so shine before men that they may behold your good works and
glorify your Father.” In front of
the lectern was an oil lamp, with its cotton wick burning from the shallow dish
of oil. As he preached, the lamp ran out of oil, the wick burned dry, and the
smoke made him cough. He immediately used the
opportunity.
“Some of
us here are like this wick,” he said. “We’re
trying to shine for the glory of God, but we stink. That’s what happens
when we use ourselves as the fuel of our witness rather than the
Holy Spirit.
“Wicks can
last indefinitely, burning brightly and without irritating smoke, if the fuel,
the Holy Spirit, is in constant supply.”
The wick of our own life story can be a powerful light
to someone else’s life if the Holy Spirit is our fuel.
That’s the way it was with the Apostle Paul’s life story. Paul tells that story
before King Agrippa in Acts 26. Listen
for God’s word to you….
Agrippa
said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched
out his hand and began to defend himself:
“I
consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my
defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, because you are
especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews;
therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.
“All
the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning
among my own people and in Jerusalem. They have known for a long time, if they
are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our
religion and lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial on account of
my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve
tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this
hope, your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews! Why is it thought incredible
by any of you that God raises the dead?
“Indeed,
I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus
of Nazareth. And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority
received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in
prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to
death. By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to
blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to
foreign cities.
“With
this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of
the chief priests, when at midday along the road, your Excellency,
I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my
companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice
saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
It hurts you to kick against the goads.’I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord
answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your
feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and
testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will
appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom
I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light
and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of
sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
“After
that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared
first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of
Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do
deeds consistent with repentance. For this reason the Jews seized me in the
temple and tried to kill me. To this day I have had help from God,
and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but
what the prophets and Moses said would take place: that the Messiah must
suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim
light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”
While
he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, “You are out of your mind, Paul!
Too much learning is driving you insane!” But Paul said, “I am not out of my
mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth. Indeed the king
knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none
of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner. King
Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.” Agrippa said to
Paul, “Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?” Paul
replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all
who are listening to me today might become such as I am—except for these
chains.”
Then
the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been
seated with them; and as they were leaving, they said to one
another, “This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.” Agrippa
said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to
the emperor.”
There are several things I
think we can learn from Paul’s story which will enable us to tell our own story well. First, we need to be prepared to
share our story with others. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the
reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
Paul did
not share the story of his relationship with Jesus uninvited. He was invited to
tell his story by King Agrippa. You may think that no one will ever ask you
about your faith in Christ, but it is not true. If Jesus is living in you, if
you are a “Christ-in” person, then others will be curious about what makes you
different.
I remember
a time when I was in college and I walked into one of my classes and sat down.
The girl sitting next to me said, “Why are you so happy all the time?” To which
I responded, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” And she said, “As a matter of fact, I
would like to know.” And I said, “Go out for dinner with me and I will tell
you!” Mind you, this was long before I met Becky. To make a long story short,
we did go out to dinner and I shared with that young woman how Jesus was the
one who made me happy. Sometimes our opportunity to share our story comes when
we least expect it, so we need to be prepared.
Second, when sharing our story, we need to be patient. You may
remember from Acts 24:27, “When two
years had passed,
Felix was succeeded
by Porcius Festus,
but because Felix wanted to grant a favor to the Jews,
he left Paul in prison.” So Paul spent two years
in prison before he had the opportunity to share his testimony again before an official of the Roman
government. But I doubt that Paul sat around
doing nothing during those two years.
I imagine he spent a good bit of
time in prayer, and perhaps some of his “prison letters”
were written from Caesarea.
Certainly, Paul spent those two years
in prison thinking through what he
wanted to say, should he ever have another
opportunity to share his story of faith in Christ.
We too need to be patient. Sometimes
we can go for long periods
without any opportunity to share our faith, then suddenly
another opportunity will come along;
God will bring someone into our lives
and we need to be ready to speak “a word in season”.
Once there
was a prison warden who asked a man on death row what he would like to eat for
his last meal. The prisoner said, “I would
like to have a large watermelon.”
The warden
replied, “You’ve got to be kidding!
This is December.
Watermelons have not even been planted, let alone harvested.” The prisoner
said, “That’s alright.
I don’t mind waiting.”
Sometimes
we would rather wait than face the inevitable. But for Paul I imagine it was
hard to wait in that Caesarean prison in Herod’s palace, not knowing for certain what his future held. I’m sure Paul learned
through that circumstance to have greater patience
than he ever had before.
A
third thing we can learn from Paul’s example is to be polite. Notice what
Paul’s attitude was when he shared his story with King Agrippa. Paul was
polite, he addressed Agrippa with respect. He honored Agrippa
by recognizing Agrippa’s familiarity with the Jewish religion and
customs.
I’ll be honest. Some professing Christians can be very obnoxious in the
way that they seek to share their faith with others. And that’s just wrong. God
doesn’t call us to be obnoxious. God wants us to honor and respect all people, because every human being is
made in the image of God. Paul recognized this, and that is probably one reason
why he was so polite in speaking to King Agrippa.
Fourth,
we should be passionate as we talk to others about our Savior. There was
a note of passion in all that Paul
said. Paul “begged” Agrippa to listen
to him. Now, that doesn’t mean that
Paul got down on his hands and knees, but the note of pleading is woven
throughout his speech. He was concerned for Agrippa’s welfare and his
relationship with God. Paul couldn’t
let things go at just relating the facts about
Christ without also
communicating his passion for Christ, and his compassion for Agrippa who was
without Christ.
Fifth,
we need to be plain and honest in the
telling of our story. The Apostle Paul told the story of his life very plainly and
honestly. He didn’t embellish it in any way.
He began by telling Agrippa that he had grown up as a very religious Jew.
The story
is told of a guy named Sam who survived the great flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
when a dam broke and took hundreds of lives. He spent the rest of his life
telling the story of how he escaped. When the Lord took him to heaven at the
age of 95, he was ready to go home.
St. Peter met him at the entrance.
“Sam, as a
newcomer, you can have anything you ask for — one time!” St. Peter said.
Sam only
wanted to tell everyone about his flood experience. St. Peter told him he could have the chance to share his story in the prayer meeting
that night. But just as Sam was getting up to speak to an audience of
millions, St. Peter whispered in his
ear, “Just remember that Noah is sitting in the front row.”
It’s important to be plain when telling our story. The guy in
the front row may have a better story than ours!
We need to
be patient, be polite, be passionate, be plain in the way that we communicate our story. We also need
to be present. In other words, we need to put our story in the
present tense. Paul told Agrippa, “I have
had God’s help to this very day.”
When we tell others
how our life changed when we came to
faith we should not leave our story in the past tense. We need to get comfortable with telling
others how Christ
is continuing to change
our lives in the present. This will make
what we share more meaningful
and more accessible to the person
hearing our story.
As Sam Shoemaker once asked: “Is your Christianity ancient
history or current
events?”
While we are
putting our story in the present tense, we
need to be personal as well. Remember
that our story is not a static thing. Paul communicated his Christian
experience in different ways to different people. Paul adapted the telling of
his story to address and appeal to people in a personal way. In Acts 22:12 when Paul was defending himself before a
Jewish audience he emphasized the role of Ananias, a devout observer of the law, in his conversion.
Being
personal also means not being afraid to share what has been wrong in our lives
and how Christ has put it right. Many years ago, there was a well-known
preacher named Brownlow North. He was a man who, in his younger years, had led
a bit of a rough life. One day, just before he was to preach in a
church in Aberdeen, Scotland, Brownlow North received a piece of
correspondence. The author of the note told him that he had evidence of some
shameful thing North had done many years before. The letter went on to say that
he was planning to interrupt the church service and tell the whole congregation
of the disgraceful act if North went ahead and preached there.
Do you
know what Brownlow North did? He took that letter with him to church and he
read it to the assembly. Then he proceeded to tell the group exactly what he
had done, which the author of the note had threatened to reveal. He confessed
that the charge against him was true but
that Jesus Christ had changed his life and that Jesus could do the same thing
for each person assembled there.
We should never be afraid
to get personal like Brownlow North did. With Christ as our
Savior we have nothing to prove and nothing to
lose.
We also need to remember
that the telling of our story is not complete until we have asked for our
hearer’s response. In communicating Christ to others, we must always be pointed. Once
again, this is not a matter of being obnoxious; it’s a matter of asking for the
order. What would you think of a waiter or waitress in a restaurant who never
asked you for your order? Not much, right? We need to learn to not be afraid to
ask people for their spiritual order. We
need to come to the point of asking others what their response to Jesus
is. This is what Paul did with Agrippa, and doing this can
turn our story from being a monologue into a wonderful dialogue about faith.
Finally,
we need to be prayerful in all our encounters with those outside the
church, especially as we share with them about our relationship with Christ. At the
end of his address to King Agrippa,
Paul hinted at the life of prayer which lay
behind the sharing of his story. Paul said, “Short time or long–I pray God that not only you but all who are listening
to me today may become what I am, except
for these chains.” Any other prisoner might have prayed for his captors that they would
become what he was “with these
chains”. Instead, Paul indicated that he was praying for
the conversion of all those who would
hear his story. He wanted them to connect
their story with God’s story.
A
missionary in India was once teaching the Bible to a group of Hindu ladies. Halfway through
the lesson, one of the women got up and walked out.
A short time later, she came back and listened more intently than ever. At the close of the hour the leader
inquired, “Why did you leave the
meeting? Weren’t you interested?”
“O yes,”
the Hindu lady replied. “I was so
impressed with what you had to say about Christ that I went out to ask your carriage
driver whether you really lived the way you talked. When he said you did, I
hurried back so I wouldn’t miss out on anything.”
Don’t underestimate the power of your own life story to lead people to
Jesus. Many people are searching for a faith that works. When they see that
faith in Christ is working
in your life,
that may be just the ticket that leads others to faith in him.
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