Hugh Hamilton
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Pensacola, FL
May 5, 2019   Easter 3   Cycle C 

UNEXPECTED ACTS OF GOD: 1. An Unexpected Friendship 
Acts 9:1‑22    John 21: 1-19

God often surprises us by the people God brings into our lives, people we would not otherwise choose as our friends.  Sometimes those persons are the very one who prepare us for God’s use in his kingdom work and through them come unexpected blessings. 

A few years ago at Trinity we explored the book and the movie SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME, which tell the true story of Ron Hall and Denver Moore, two men in Fort Worth, Texas, who had one of the most unlikely friendships ever and whose lives crossed in divine circumstances.   Ron and Denver were as different as two men could be: Denver was a homeless African American man living on the streets of Fort Worth. A former sharecropper from Louisiana, he’d gone to prison for armed robbery.  Ron was a financial advisor turned art dealer, a wealthy, college-educated man living in suburbia with his wife and two children. Denver walked into the homeless mission where Deborah volunteered, and through that encounter began an unlikely friendship.

Their relationship began as a rich man sharing with a poor man, with much distrust and suspicion of each other, but it became a friendship between equals, as children of God. When Deborah was diagnosed with liver cancer, Denver became her faithful prayer warrior.  Her death became the catalyst for Ron and Denver bonding like bothers, determined to address the needs of the homeless population in Fort Worth. Their book, Same Kind of Different as Me, chronicles their discovery that the other had something he needed, a surprising gift of God that could be discovered only when each man opened himself to a friendship with someone as different as they could be. 

God works in unexpected ways to bless us and heal us, to open our eyes to new life!  Who in your life who was of a different background, or beliefs, or profession, or culture, education, or otherwise, and yet forever impacted your life?  Maybe you didn’t seek out him/her, but God touched your life by the gifts he placed in them, or by the way he/she/they challenged you?     

Joe and Hugh.  When I went to seminary to prepare for the ministry, my dormitory suitemate and I were polar-opposites.  Joe was a street wise, hardnosed, long haired, non-conformist who challenged everybody and everything.  Joe lived and breathed and preached social justice.  I was a button down, preppy, college boy and I stood for everything Joe resented.  We had our moments, but somewhere during our year together, we came to appreciate each other’s differences, realizing that Joe would connect with people I could not, and I would connect with people Joe would not.   Together our ministries would serve a broader range of people than either of us alone would reach.  I became thankful for Joe, and he for me. We had differing styles of ministry; not wrong, just different. Each had something to offer the kingdom of God. 
Ananias and Saul were enemies.  They were on a collision course, not a friendship, not a bromance.  God struck Saul blind on the Damascus Road, drove him to his knees.  Why?  To punish Saul?  To destroy him?  No!  No, God comes to this self-righteous, murderous, man to give him a new start, a new life.  God blinds Saul in order to help him see like he’s never seen before.  Saul came to see who Jesus really is, came to see God as he never saw God before; came to see God’s will; came to see his part in God’s master plan.

SAUL’S STORY.  Saul’s conversion was a miracle of grace.  Saul was a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, a man righteous by the Law of Moses.  He resented these followers of Christ who, in his mind, were spreading heresy and blasphemy!  He was determined to wipe them out!  

Saul helped execute Stephen, the first Christian martyr and one of Ananias’ brothers in the new Christian faith.  Saul held the coats of the men who pummeled Stephen to death with rocks and bricks.  He’d seen and heard the bricks hit Stephen, and heard Stephen pray aloud, "Lord Jesus receive my spirit ...Do not hold this sin against them." (Acts 7:59‑60).  How could a bad man die such a good death?  Who could pray like that?  What was it these Christians had that Saul did not have? They had the love of Christ in their hearts.

Now Saul was the one who lay in the dirt, scared, bruised by the rocks of the Damascus highway.  Jesus spoke to him out of the bright light, asking, "Saul, why are you persecuting me?"  In the moment Saul encountered Jesus, his life was changed. Saul did not enter Damascus as the raging lion, but as a helpless kitten, blind, led by the hand, humbled before the risen Lord Jesus.

William Barclay says the essence of all Christianity is in what Christ said to Paul, "Go into the city, and you will be told what to do." Up to this moment Paul had been doing what HE liked, what HE wanted, what HE thought best, what HIS will dictated.  From this time forward he would be told what to do.  A Christian is a person who has stopped doing what he/she wants to do and who has begun to do what Christ wants him/her to do (Barclay, 71). 

Scales fell from Saul’s eyes and he saw all things new.  Saved by God, Saul no longer persecuted the church, he prospered the church!  As Paul, he became the great missionary for Christ; he traveled the Mediterranean world proclaiming his Christian faith.  He bridged the gap between Gentile and Jew; he established and strengthened Christian churches; he wrote most of the epistles in our New Testament, he developed and corrected Christian theology, and gave Christianity standing in the Roman world.

ANANIAS’ STORY:   As much as Acts 9 is the story of Paul, it’s also a story about Ananias.  As much as the church owes its success to Paul, we also owe Paul to the ministry of Ananias, a layman! 

When God told Ananias to go to Saul and lay hands on him to help him, to heal him, of course Ananias balked!  Can you blame him?  Everybody knew about Saul, this monstrous man who is come to arrest and kill Christians!  Hearing on the streets, “Saul is in town!” people shuddered.  When Ananias approached Saul to lay hands on him in healing prayer, he probably feared that Saul would lay hands on him to arrest him!  Then, realizing Saul’s blindness, he might have seized the advantage, taunting Saul, tormenting him like a defenseless caged animal.  But God had assured Ananias that Saul is “an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15).  Thus, Ananias’ greets him, “Brother Saul.”

It was a sublime example of Christian love and fellowship.  Ananias affirmed that it was indeed Jesus Christ who confronted Paul on the road, that God had heard Paul’s prayers and now God had brought Ananias to him to help him regain his sight. When the scales fell from Paul’s eyes, Paul did not see a bitter enemy, but a new brother in Christ.  Paul rose, and was baptized into fellowship with Christ and his people.
 
God is full of surprises!  Saul will become Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, whose witness to the Gentiles spread the Christian faith around the world!  
    Keep your eyes open to the people God brings into your life – 
       it may be that God is calling you to enter a life-changing, holy friendship!
     Ananias and Saul show us that God can call us to put aside our differences and serve him – 
       and the results will exceed anything we could imagine! 

OUR STORY:  
Who did God use in your life to bring you to Christ?  
   Who might God bring to Christ through YOU?  
      God can change your life; do you believe it?  
          God radically changed Paul’s life for the better, and God can do that for you!  

Many of you can testify to the changes God has made in your life. 
  He has changed your attitudes, 
    he has replaced your anger with patience and your resentment with love. 
        He has restored your hope, healed old hurts and brought renewal. 
           It is like getting new eyes for old.

New eyes see JESUS aright.  Paul no longer saw Jesus as a despised Nazarene; now he knew Jesus as his Savior.  If you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, no one can take that away from you!  The smartest skeptic who tries to ridicule Christianity is no match for the simplest person with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!

Through Jesus you will see SIN in a different light.  No longer is sin simply breaking the rules.  Sin is an ugly, repulsive disease that distorts our conscience, clouds our judgment, weakens our will until we self-destruct.  Paul hated his past sins, he battled temptation everyday and rejoiced endlessly because of God's strong hand upon his life. Our closeness to Christ Jesus sensitizes us to sin and enables us to resist its power over us.

Through Jesus you will see PEOPLE in a different light.   Paul wrote to the Corinthians "From now on we recognize no one according to the flesh" (2 Cor. 5:16).  Look around you the sanctuary....every person here is a brother or a sister for whom Jesus died.  God forbids we abuse or misuse people.  We ignore people, belittle them, make fun of them, even hate them; even still God loves them. We who have been saved by God's love must reflect that love and see people as God sees them.  See them with “JESUS EYES" and see their worth. Christ demands that you accept and treat with respect people you meet.  Ephesians 2:14-16 states that “He who tore down the dividing walls wills one humanity.” 

Jesus helps you to see the JOY in life.  With Jesus in your life, the travails of this world are not all that you see or know.  You begin to discover hidden blessings and begin to see the goodness in the world that outweighs the bad.  Its like those videos you see online that show people putting on EnChroma sunglasses that let people with color blindness now see vibrant colors all around them and they cry tears of joy for seeing what they had missed. 
 
It's that way with you when you find Jesus and the new life He gives!  It doesn’t matter if your experience differs from Saul of Tarsus, or if your conversion experience differs from your friends’.  Just make sure of this, that you have come to know Jesus, have invited him into your heart, and have received his offer of new life.

If you have not accepted Christ into your heart, I encourage you to do so right now, right here.     
   During communion, ask Jesus to give you new eyes for old, and a new life with him as your   
      Lord and Savior.
       Open your heart to the unexpected friendships and friendships God brings into your life! 
         Amazing Grace! I once was blind, but now I see!   Amen!

Sources

Barclay, William.  The Daily Study Bible Series: Acts. Philadelphia: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1977. 
Hamilton, Hugh. “Seeing With New Eyes.” First Presbyterian Church-Covington, TN. 09-12-93.    
Howington, Nolan P. "New Eyes For Old." In A Royal Priesthood. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1986, 7‑13.
Jessica LaGrone. The Unexpected Acts of God. In Jessica Miller Kelley, A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary 	Sermon Series, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2016, 204-215. 

\05-05-19 UNEXPECTED ACTS OF GOD 1 An Unlikely Freindship.docx