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About two months ago, I had the opportunity to share my testimony with the middle school youth group here at Emmaus.I’d like to share a bit of what I said. I was saved at the age of eleven when some high school kids approached me and my group of friends in the lobby of a roller skating rink in Bloomington one Friday night as we were waiting for our parents to come and get us. I had already known and loved the Lord long before this moment, but this was the moment when it all came together for me. This was the first of many most important moments in my life, as I meant what I prayed and I have devoted my heart, if not all of my actions and words and choices, since that moment, to being a follower of Jesus. A disciple, albeit a shy one, of Christ.
I like to write things out when I speak most of the time because I like to speak. If I don’t put the words down, I can really get lost on a random tangent and that isn’t helpful to anyone involved. So in order to prepare for that night at youth group I wrote out my testimony. It was wonderful to go back to that night, that week, that first year of my walk with Jesus. So many details came flooding back – people and things that I hadn’t thought about for years. They sweet ways in which God began drawing me near to Him. One of the sweetest was the fact that I had a little old black and white television in my room. My morning routine prior to that night at the roller rink consisted of my kind mom coming in and turning on theTV to the channel with the Flintstones so I could watch while I got ready for school. Soon after accepting Jesus, and for the next several years, I had my mom turn the channel to Jim and Tammy Baker and the PTL Club. Ironic, I know. Even more ironic when I add in the fact that the kids who approached me, shared the gospel and lead me in prayer – who even came to my house that weekend to introduce themselves to my parents and to see if they had any questions – were part of a cult.
I always hesitate saying that because it sounds so dramatic. There were no flowing robes, no shaved heads, no strange rituals, but there was a lot of false teachinggoing on and as God, not luck, would have it, while we didn’t know who they were at the time, I repeatedly turned down invitations to attend their Bible studies not because I didn’t want to go, not because my parents didn’t want me to go, but because I didn’t want to go without my friend Kim, who had also accepted Christ that night, and between the two of us we weren’t able to go for several consecutive weeks – so they stopped asking. God used those kids according to His will. He did the same with Jim and Tammy. I loved those two. So much so that I sent them my baby sitting money. In all fairness, I don’t think they did any false teaching, maybe they were a little heavy on the tithing part, but they certainly did lose site of the God they had begun preaching about so many years earlier in a one room apartment in International Falls, Minnesota. Their teachings weren’t corrupt, but their ministry was. Yet God used them in an incredibly significant way in my life. I didn’t have a church that felt like home or a youth group that loved me for several more years after that night, and those folks carried me, taught me, led me in worship in my bedroom and random basements around Richfield, where I would tune in and watch after putting the many kids I babysat to bed. Kim had moved away and I was certain that I was the only Christian in my middle school.
That was my testimony for the first several years: Under the most unlikely of circumstances, with the least likely of people, God found me. He drew me to Him and eventually He drew other Christians into my life.
The first time I shared that testimony publicly was with my youth group in the 11th grade I shared it many other times as well. Up until recently I thought it was my testimony. But not too long after I shared it here at Emmaus, a conversation came up at the Bible Study that I am in. This topic has come up before, but it really caught my attention this time. It made me question what my testimony really is.
The people I am in Bible Study with hold a strong conviction that our testimony changes over time. It’s not that what I shared isn’t true; it just isn’t the whole story. The analogy that comes to mind is one of a river current growing stronger. If I might, let me offer a little science refresher here: A river is a stream of water that flows from a source such as a spring, often on a hill or mountain, or from hilly areas with lots of rain, or from a lake where lots of water from small streams gather when it rains or snows. The part of the river that is near the source is called the “young” or “youthful river.” The river’s current always moves forward, it always follows its force – the force of gravity – which pulls it downhill, but the flow can go in all the directions of the compass and it can be a complex, meandering path. There may betributaries that come flowing in and storms might bring some flooding.Occasionally an eddy might cause it to stop and spin. As it moves it becomes known as a “MatureRiver.” This is the point where the river is often deep and runs fast. It sweeps over small rocks and boulders and makes big turns around hills and mountains. It is much broader than a young river. Sometimes the current can dry up in certain rivers for a time– until another rainfall. As a river nears its end point it is often flowing over land that has become flatter, the current is wider and slower and it is called an “OldRiver”. This part of the river is the most useful for growing crops and sustaining life both in the river and on the banks and nearby lands. So while the initial source of the river remains the same, the current changes and grows until it reaches its destination.
That is what I believe our testimony is to be – alive, moving, growing stronger, offering valuable nutrition to others, not without it’s challenging points, not without it’s dry points, always being powered from its original source: God the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – but always being empowered, added to, expanded, from the things that are added to it, from our experiences, our relationships, our stories, as we travel towards our heavenly home.
A testimony such as this is perfectly illustrated in the Paul’s life story as we will see.
Paul had the testimony of testimonies. According to Acts Chapter 9, he was plowing down the road to Damascus breathing out serious murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples one minute and being overwhelmed by a light from heaven flashing around him, forcing him to the ground and striking him blind the next. The light was Jesus himself asking Paul, then Saul, why he was persecuting Him. Then God told him to get up, so the men around him, who also heard the voice but who did not see the light, took him to Damascus where he remained blind and did not eat or drink anything for three days. Then the Lord called out in a vision to a man named Ananias. God said, “Ananias, go to the house of Judas on Straight Street, ask for a man from Tarsus, named Saul, who is blind by the way, and who is busy praying. In a vision he has seen you come and place your hand on him and heal him.” Would you not give anything for God to speak so specifically to you? Go to 316 Manitou Street, ask for Julie, who will be blind and praying by the way, lest there be any confusion, and tell her about me.” Don’t you think you would just say, “Amen. Thank you Jesus for being so clear! I am on it!” Well, you would think, but maybe not, because Ananias’ response goes more like this: Yeah, no. I know who you’re talking about Jesus, and I’m not really interested. Thanks anyway. I’m good.
He tried to get out of it because he had heard about the significant harm that Saul had caused God’s people in Jerusalem, but the Lord said to Ananias in verse 15, “Go! Just Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel!” So Ananias went to the house, placed his hands on Saul and said, “Brother, the Lord, Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that 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, was baptized and then got something to eat – don’t you love the order of that – got baptized, then ate! Next, he spent some time with the disciples in Damascus – he did not take them prisoner or kill them, by the way – and everyone around was in a fit because Paul had raised so much havoc in Jerusalem where he would break into frenzywhenever anyone called on the name of Jesus.
Yet Saul grew more and more powerful, baffling the Jews, who then created a plan to kill him. But the Jesus followers protectedhim – hiding him in baskets and lowering him through ceilings – and within days Paul was in Jerusalem sharing this incredible story with the disciples there and soon was sent off the Tarsus to begin his ministry as a disciple of Christ. Now that is a testimony.
We Christians have been telling that story forever. It is a story that has been told, retold and read millions of times in the past 2000 years. I am sure Paul told it often. I am sure the other disciples told it often. Certainly the people who came to Jesus because of Paul’s early ministry when they were trying to describe the power of this new found God to their friends and family who wondered what was happening to themtold it often. It is a testimony worth telling. That story finds Paul right at the source of his life’s current. That was the Paul of Acts Chapter 9. Today we are hearing from the Paul of second Timothy.
Let’s look at the scripture for today. This is such a beautiful, heartfelt letter that Paul has written – and we are only reading ¼ of it. I encourage you to read the rest when you get home.
Paul is an old man now. He knows he will die soon. He says later in this letter that the time has come for him to stop fighting and to rest. He has fought enough. He tells Timothy that he is cold and asks him to bring him his coat when he comes to visit – and also his books and his parchments – his papers that he left with Brother Carpus. It sounds as if he is starting to get his things in order the way people do when they find themselves in old age. He also mentions more than once in his letter that he is lonely and that all of the Christians near him, even the ones who were his friends, have deserted him – except for Onesiphorus who is not ashamed to have a friend who is in prison. Hearing this part of Paul’s letter, it seems he needs a friend to listen to him.
It is so hard to keep in mind that Paul was not writing this letter to us. He did not know that this letter would be read by millions of people. He was writing to Timothy and telling his story, his testimony, as it was at that moment in time.
At this point, Paul is not reliving the miracle of his walk down the road to Damascus decades before. He is notpretending to be the man he was in a previous prison story, when he,along with Silas, after having been swept up by a mob, stripped, severely beaten with wooden whips and jailed, was found singing praises to the Lord in the middle of the night and God responded by shaking the prison foundations so thoroughly that all of the doors flew open and the chains of every prisoner flew off. That is an incredible story. An incredible testimony to the Lord’s unstoppable, unpredictable power and faithfulness which Paul certainly shared many times when he was preaching. But not this particular day.
Nor is Paul stuck in the glory days when he was healing people, casting out demons, causing riots among silversmiths, traveling to exotic places, being attacked with words, fists and weapons– he brings up none of the countless times that he could have where the story was about the power God gave him – when his current was mature and running deep and fast.
What Paul does is speak to Timothy is a way that is meaningful, encouraging and truthful. We have already experienced his willingness to be vulnerable, humble. But he also shares of his deep love for God. “He is my father’s God, Timothy.” Paul declares, “And my God, and my only purpose is life is to please Him.”
He shares of his deep faithfulness to God, in God and of God to him: “It is He who saved us, Timothy, and chose us for His holy work, not because we deserved it but because that was His plan long before the world began,” says Paul, “To show His love and kindness to us through Jesus. And now He has made all of this plain to us by the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, who broke the power of death and showed us the way of everlasting life through trusting Him. And God has chosen me, Timothy, me, to be his missionary, to preach and to teach. That is why I am suffering here in jail and I am certainly not ashamed of it, for I know the one whom I trust.”
His story at this point in this one chapter is profound. If you never read anything else regarding the testimony that was Paul’s life, you would know enough to know that he is sincere and that God’ love and offer of salvation are real. There is noexaggeration, no bravado, no manipulation. He is honest about what is hard, but he is not looking for sympathy. He is looking connect with, encourage and speak truth to this young man who is crafting his own story as a testimony to God.
“Timothy,” Paul says, “My dear son Timothy, May God the Jesus our shower you with his kindness, mercy and peace. I thank Him and pray for you all the time. I know you are still trusting Him, just as your mom and your grandma do, son. Hold tightly to the pattern of truth. Guard the splendid gift you received from the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s old, wide, slow current is providing great nutrition to Timothy.
Well, this letter of testimony may have been written by Paul to Timothy, but certainly God planned for all of us to hear it. In fact, God Himself chose story as His way to present Himself to us. I heard recently that our stories are meant to get underneath our experiences and help us to move, pivot and transform who we are. I believe that is what the hundreds and hundreds of different stories in the Bible do: They all get underneath who God is, the one big all important story of who God is, and help Him come to life for us. Woven together they create the Living Word. The Testimony of God. As if that weren’t gift enough; the story of God doesn’t end with the Book of Revelation, chapter 22, verse 21. Not at all. The all powerful current of God’s testimony continues to flow through us. We tend to think of stories as happening at one particular moment in time, but that’s the remarkable thing about stories; they don’t just happen to the story teller; they happen to everyone who hears them every time they are told.
I had an idea for today. It came up in a Sunday school class I was in this fall. It was the class on the Book of Ruth where we learned about the ways God uses our lowest, saddest, most broken times to draw us to Him. We all have them. Sometimes they are caused by disappointment and loss, sometimes by the hurtful choices of others, sometimes by our own shame. We were discussing how hard it is to share about our most meaningful times with God because they often occur when He is drawing us out of either our heartbreak or our shame and that’s so hard to talk about. We joked about the idea of having a nametag Sunday where everyone had to write their two saddest and their two most shameful moments underneath their name. What would happen? Can you imagine? I thought about doing that today – until I realized that I would have to write mine down, too. But think about it, what would happen – after the chaos and horror, I mean. What if we all got to walk around looking at each others name tags – each others heart break, each others shame, each others victories?What would it feel like to suddenly be known? To suddenly be revealed? To find out something so heartbreaking about someone you care deeply for and never knew? To find out that you are not the only one with your particular brand of shame? To find out about the ways God has healed the people who you have sat in front of and behind for years, but never really gotten to know? To be free to just share our stories?