It all starts in the Book of Acts. After Jesus had died and rose again, people were coming to faith in Jesus all over the place and churches (groups of Christians who met together) were sprouting up in different cities. Now this kind of thing was a real threat to the Jewish religious leaders who believed that Jesus wasn’t God (because that’s impossible, right?), so he must have been an evil liar who was tricking people into putting their faith in him. And that’s the whole reason why they killed Jesus in the first place! These religious leaders hated Jesus and believed he was a liar and deceiver, even though they had witnessed Jesus doing incredible miracles with their own eyes and couldn’t explain it! They saw Jesus as a threat to their religion!
So, because of this, the Jewish religious leaders made it their mission to put an end to this movement of Christianity. They began to accuse and punish anybody who believed in something different than them, and they made it their goal to kill or imprison anybody who taught that Jesus was the Son of God and that people could experience forgiveness through him.
Last year, we talked about how, one of the reasons we can have confidence that what the Bible says about Jesus is true is because the disciples kept sharing their faith and leading people to believe in Jesus even though there was NOTHING good in it for them! They didn’t make millions of dollars selling their story, they didn’t become rich and famous! In fact, talking about Jesus at the time was SUPER RISKY! Most of the disciples actually ended up being killed for talking about Jesus and refusing to say that it was all a made-up story…and I don’t know about you, but I would NEVER die because I wanted to convince people of a story that I made up. That would just be insane!
Anyhow, in Acts 7, it tells us about the FIRST MARTYR (someone who is killed for their faith). This guy, Stephen, just kept telling people about Jesus, and this angered people so much, that they actually threw stones at him until he was dead! Acts 7:57-58 says that the person overseeing the whole thing, was a young man named Saul.
In a lot of movies, they establish how bad the villain is and make you hate him by having him doing something terrible right near the start. For example, if you saw AVENGERS:INFINITY WAR, it took us about 5 minutes to realize that Thanos was ONE BAD DUDE. Well here, we’re first introduced to a guy named Saul…and it’s pretty easy to see that he was a villain…. the first time we hear about him, he’s helping people kill a guy!
Saul was a Jewish religious leader who HATED all of the “lies” that Christians were saying about God! Acts 9: 1-2 says that he was given a mission by the other Jewish religious leaders- to hunt down Christians and arrest or kill them! This guy, Saul, meant well….he thought he was doing the right thing and making God proud, but little did he know that HE was the villain! It's kind of hard to wrap our minds around this kind of thing these days, but I guess you could kind of compare it to life in a community country. For example, in China, there are people who are arrested and even tortured JUST BECAUSE THEY WENT TO CHURCH!
Acts 9 says that while Saul was on the road to go and kill some more Christians, something kind of supernatural happened! He was blinded by a light from heaven, fell to ground, and heard the voice of Jesus. Jesus asked Saul, "Why are you persecuting me?" and then told Saul to go into the city and wait.
If the story ended there, we would be all like “YES! Saul got what he deserved! He was killing and throwing Christians in jail, so now he’s going to be blind for the rest of his life as punishment!” Only….that’s not what happened!
God sent a follower of Jesus to meet Saul- a guy by the name of Ananias, and Ananias told Saul that Jesus forgave him for the things he was doing and that Jesus wanted Saul to follow him and tell others about him! Now that's a pretty shocking twist! So, Ananias prayed for Saul, and the Bible says that it was like scales that fell off of Saul’s eyes. He could see again! Saul was so shocked and amazed that right then and there, he believed in Jesus and was baptized (which means that he wanted to show people publicly that he was going to follow Jesus with his life!). Acts 9:19-21 says that Saul started travelling and telling people about Jesus, and this just floored people. People were absolutely shocked that this HATER of Christianity became a Christian himself! I mean, this guy had KILLED people just because they believed differently than him!
Now, this guy Saul, he became kind of a big deal. In the Bible, you might know him by another name—Paul. And this guy Paul, became a pastor and missionary—a leader of the early church. He actually wrote 13 books of the Bible! Maybe you never thought about that before—but a good chunk of the New Testament was written by a guy who used to hate Christians so much that he had them thrown in prison or killed!
Later on, in 1 Timothy 1:15-16, Paul wrote: “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I AM THE WORST OF THEM ALL. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.”
Isn’t that amazing! Paul here, admits that Jesus came to make a way for sinners to be forgiven (sinners are people who say and do things that are the opposite of what God wants). Paul even says that he was the WORST SINNER OF THEM ALL! He definitely didn’t deserve God’s love and forgiveness! He definitely didn’t deserve a second-chance, but God gave it to him anyway, because the thing that God wants THE MOST is for everybody (no matter who they are, or what they’ve done) to experience his love and forgiveness!
Hopefully none of us are killers, but the Bible tells us that all of us have sinned—we all say and do things that are the opposite of the way God tells us to live. We lie. We’re unkind to people. We might gossip. We might look at stuff on our computers that we know isn’t right. We might be selfish, We might lash out at people in anger….the list goes on and on. And that's just what we did today!
But this is the really good news. Despite the fact that we’re all a mess—despite the fact that we keep making bad choices and do things that we know God isn’t proud of, just like for Paul—God offers us love and forgiveness, and a brand new start. A second, third, fourth, and a one-hundredth chance to follow him! When I think about Paul’s story in the Bible---I sometimes ask myself—WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD GOD FORGIVE THIS GUY? I mean, he was throwing Christians in prison and even killing them! I mean, didn’t this guy cross a line?
Some people have this picture of God being someone who enjoys punishing us--- where he wants you to pay for your mess-ups, but that’s not true at all! One of my most favourite Bible verses is in Psalm 103:8-10 where it says, “God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs”.
Definitely, one of the best reminders we can have as we start a new year, is that God loves us—he wants a friendship with us—he wants us to follow him—and he wants us to accept his love and forgiveness, even if we might not deserve it! He did it to Paul--- a guy who killed other Christians and considered himself to be the WORST SINNER EVER—and he can do it for you and me! Christians (people who try to follow Jesus) aren’t perfect people. We’re just people who try our best to follow God with our lives and lean on God’s grace when we mess up! We're people who NEED God's AMAZING GRACE!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR HOME
1. What do you find the most shocking about Saul/Paul's story?
2. Do you think it's fair that Jesus offered him forgiveness? Why or why not?
3. What is the hopeful thing about Paul's story? What's the good news?
4. Remind your teen that no matter what they've done or how badly they've sinned-- God isn't standing up in heaven pointing his finger down in judgment. His actual response is quite jaw-dropping! He's wanting for us to come to him for forgiveness!
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