God's Word: Sharing The Story - Romans 10:13-17
Daytime television is flooded with
them. Judge Judy, America’s Court,
Paternity Court, Maury, Jerry Springer, The People’s Court, Judge Mathis, Steve
Harvey, Dr. Phil…the list could go on and on and on. They are all people who want someone,
actually seemingly want everyone with a television, to hear their story…and
evidently, with the number of those shows on the air, people like to hear their
stories. Is it any wonder that social
networks like Facebook are a success? It
allows anyone to share their story, from what they are thinking at a given
moment to pictures of themselves with their friends all crowded in front of a
bathroom mirror to the results of a survey suggesting what city they ought to
be living in and they share that part of their story with anyone willing to be
their friend…or the friend of their friends…or anyone. People like to share their stories.
We may not take to the airwaves or
cyberspace, but most of us like to share our stories. I’ve known a couple of folks here recently
who have taken on the amazing project of writing out their life stories in order
to share them with their children and other family members. However, even more basic than that is the
time we sit down with someone else and share a story. Maybe it happens at a reunion when we gather
with those we have not seen in years and we exchange our stories about all that
has happened to us since the last time we were all together. Maybe it happens in the beauty shop where we
tell all the other regulars of the things that we have seen, done, or heard
since the previous week. Maybe it
happens over a fellowship meal at church.
Maybe it happens at the dinner table, though this happens less and less
these days, where family members share the story of what they have done during
the day.
The sharing of stories has always been
a part of human culture. There are so
many things we would not know if someone had not shared their story. In fact, were it not for God’s people sharing
their stories, we would not have our Scriptures…for this is a wonderful
compilation of the people of God sharing their stories…the stories of how they
have experienced and understood God and their desire to share it with anyone
who would hear and listen. By word of
mouth and then later through writing, God’s people passed down the story of
God’s role in their lives for future generations to embrace, to guide their
lives and encourage their faithfulness to God.
Consider the words of the Psalmist:
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the
words of my mouth. I will open my mouth
in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard
and known, that our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming
generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that
he has done. He established a decree in
Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach
to their children; that the next generation might know them, the children yet
unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should set
their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious
generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not
faithful to God. [i]
We’ve been examining this Storybook
for the last two weeks as we have explored God’s Word. We began by understanding God’s Word to be
the lamp to our feet and the light to our path, embracing the ability of God’s
Word to shine light into the dark rooms and paths in our lives and show us the
way to go. Last week we examined the
importance of not only hearing God’s Word, but responding to it, embracing the
Word of God and obeying it…not to earn God’s favor…not simply because God told
us to…but because God’s Word is shared with us that we might find and
experience salvation…not only from our sins and death, but also from the ways
that troubles and evil assail us from every side…God’s Word becomes the solid
ground on which we stand and cannot be shaken.
It is through all of this, allowing
God’s Word to light our way and building our lives of the foundation of His Word,
that God’s Story actually becomes part of our story. God’s Word comes into our lives and begins to
shape who we are and how we live. It
should become the lens through which we see the rest of the world and how we
experience life day to day. It should
become inseparably intertwined with our day to day lives and stories we have to
tell.
In 99.99% of the television shows that
I mentioned at the outset of this message, people are airing their problems…the
bad stories, the bad news of their lives.
In the social networks of the computing age, you get about a 50/50
split. All too often in the beauty shop
conversations (and let me tell you it is not only the women, these
conversations take place in the barbershops too), if the stories move past the
local gossip where we are trying to tell someone else’s’ story from a very
negative point of view, we begin grumbling about how the government is messing
up our story or the results from our latest round of medical tests, and it
doesn’t look good. What we are all too
often missing it is to tell the Gospel story, the Good News…a positive story,
our story.
I am not talking about walking into
your family or class reunions or the beauty or barber shops or any other place
and going up to folks you know or complete strangers and posing the question,
“If today were your last day on earth, do you know where you would end up?” or
even starting up a conversation with, “Do you know Jesus?” or “Have you found
Jesus?” (like Jesus is lost somewhere). Too many people on both sides of that
conversation feel intimidated or put off by those questions—the recipient
feeling like they are being confronted by some holier-than-thou-bible-thumper
and many of us saying, “I just don’t know how to have that conversation. I don’t know enough about the Bible to share
it.” Well, if we don’t know enough about
the Bible to share it, we have just made the argument for why folks should be
coming to Sunday School and Bible Studies—so that we can know more to be able
to share it. However, that is not what I
am talking about either.
The stories we begin sharing start
with our own Gospel…our own Good News.
This is not making up stories about Jesus, it is about sharing with
others, the same way that Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and the others
did, our own experience with God, our own experience with Jesus. We begin by sharing with others how our story
and The Story, God’s Story, have become one.
We are to share what a difference God has made in our lives…that’s our
Gospel…our Good News. As we share our
story and The Story with others, it begins to make a difference in their lives.
Why is this important? Our reading this morning has told us. Hear it again:
For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.” ‘But how are they to call on one in whom they have not
believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And
how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they
are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good
news!” But not all have obeyed the good
news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what
is heard comes through the word of Christ. [ii]
We share our story and The Story that
those around us might hear. We share our
story and The Story that all of those around us might find the saving grace of
God through Jesus Christ in their lives.
We share our story and The Story that others might come to know the same
amazing presence of a Savior in their lives.
We share our story and The Story that others might have a light for
their paths and a solid foundation on which to build.
With all this talk about story, I
realize that I never finished telling my story from the first week. Remember, I had been asked by a couple in the
church I was serving to go and visit a middle school softball coach that had
been arrested for having ongoing sexual relations with one of his players. I shared with you how that same coach had
helped the church just months earlier by serving as a chaperon on a fellowship
trip with our youth, a trip that included the young girl. I shared with you how much I did not want to
visit this guy. I shared with you how in
response to prayer for God to show me what to do, for God to light my path, my
devotional reading was from Matthew 25 with Jesus’s words, “I was in prison and
you visited me.” What did I do? Well, this time I let what I heard in God’s
Word move my feet. I responded to God’s answer,
and I went to the jail. Nervous and
praying to myself the whole time, I waited for them to bring him to the
visiting area. What I encountered was
not a monster, but a broken man. A man
who now realized what wrong he had done and the lives he had ruined. A man who did not understand how he had come
to do those things. A man who felt so
lost that he wanted to simply end his own life—not to escape punishment but
because that is what he felt he deserved.
What would I do next? I could encourage those feelings, helping
make him feel more and more filthy and worthless…hoping that he would take his
own life. Yet that is not what
happened. God, in an amazing way,
granted me His eyes…the eyes to see this man as He did…eyes filled with sorrow
for a man so lost that he could not find reason to live…eyes to see a man that God
had sent His Son to die for…eyes to see a man that needed to know the salvation
that was available to him.
So I began to share my story and The
Story…of how we all struggle with temptation…not all the same temptation, but
temptation nevertheless, to ignore what’s right and go after what’s wrong, because
it feels good at the moment. I shared
with him my reluctance to even come and why, but how God’s Word gave me the
guidance to be there. I shared with him
how the love and grace of God can overcome any trouble and forgive any sin…of
God’s love for him, even in the midst of what he had done. I was given the gift of being able to watch
as this man began to see the light and the lifeline that God was willing to
offer, and was able to pray with him as he surrendered his life to Christ anew.
Why share the story? It is so all may hear and believe. It is because someone shared the story with
us and it made a difference in our lives.
It is because as we share our story and The Story that those around us come
to know the love of God through Christ in their lives and begin living their
own stories in the light of that love, with the story of their lives built on a
foundation that cannot be shaken. It is
so others may have a story of their own to share with those around them. It is so everyone might come to call on the
name of the Lord and be saved.
In the Name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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