“The Purpose of God “
God has a purpose. He works it out as surely as you and I are here today.
When Moses Young was baptised the other week, we thought about how Moses was reluctant to be sent on his mission. Today we have heard the prophet Jeremiah doing much the same. The Lord speaks to him and tells him:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations”.
Jeremiah promptly panics and argues, as Moses argued, “I can’t possibly do what you are asking me to do, I am only a boy, I won’t know what to say”. Jeremiah panics because he is being asked to do what he is afraid of doing. He is asked to move outside of his comfort zone. But Jeremiah is told that everything is in fact ok because God has created this particular person, Jeremiah, for this particular job. Jeremiah is part of Gods purpose. God is in control and Jeremiah will be able do what he has been created to do and be.
This theme is repeated in the stories of both Ananias and Saul.
Let’s look at the story of Ananias first.
We don’t know much about him except that he is a Christian of Damascus and that he too is afraid to do what God asks him to do.
Ananias is asked to go to Paul because God has marked Paul out to take the Gospel to the Gentiles and the kings and the people of Israel, but Ananias knows about Saul and is afraid of him and not without reason. Saul is a faithful and pious Shammaite Pharisee. In other words, he is one of the strictest of Jews; zealous for Israel’s God, zealous for the land of Israel and zealous for the law of Israel. He is determined to defeat, by any means, all pagan or Christian sects which threatened Israel, her God and her law. This is why he had done much evil to the Saints in Jerusalem.
In today’s story Saul has gone out of his way, acting in terrorist fashion, to hunt down these blasphemous Christians and bring them bound back to Jerusalem. There was good reason for Ananias to be reluctant and afraid in going to Saul. Nevertheless, he goes. He is a brave man, an obedient man a trusting man and a converted man (he changes direction). When he arrives, there is no sign of fear or panic. The words he speaks to Paul and the gentle gestures of love and acceptance which he bestows on Paul are given to him to say and offer. He calls his enemy and tormentor brother, tells him that the Lord Jesus has sent him so that he may regain his sight. He lays his hands on him in a gesture of healing and, when Paul is healed, baptises him so that Paul may receive the Holy Spirit. Through this man God pours his grace on Saul.
We can be rightly impressed by Ananias and his example but we need to remember that God was in control all the time. God had created Ananias to be who and what he was, to do God’s will and to be an active part of God’s purpose; that of bringing Saul into his service.
And so to Paul. God’s words to Jeremiah are true not only for Jeremiah but also for Paul.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations”.
But it seems that Paul had not got off to a very good start. As we have seen, he is violently and actively against Jesus. He does not see Jesus as the Saviour, the risen and ascended Lord. He cannot conceive that Jesus is the Messiah or that he died and rose again and ascended into heaven where he sits at God’s right hand in glory. Paul cannot conceive that with Jesus the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated. The Christian sect, for Paul, is blasphemous, horrendous and it is to be stamped out and obliterated!
Paul was, nevertheless a faithful, zealous and pious Shammaite Pharisee.. Saul believed that he was one of the chosen, who by zealous prayer and action, would be marked out for vindication when God finally acted to save and redeem his people. He believed that God’s kingdom would come but it would come through HIS particular branch of Judaism and certainly not through Jesus who he saw as a controversial lawless blasphemer who, as far as he was concerned, had got what he deserved on the cross. Paul would rather have died than follow Jesus.
So, we might ask, why did God chose this man?
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you I appointed you a prophet to the nations”.
God had chosen Saul but he had to be converted if he was to serve as he had been consecrated to serve. A conversion is not necessarily from one faith to another, or from no faith to faith. Conversion means a complete turning around and a complete change of heart. For someone as devout and convinced as Paul, it needed to be a pretty big and radical conversion experience. In the flashing light and the voice of Jesus, in the following blindness and helplessness, Paul will become aware that he has had a unique encounter with Jesus Christ, the risen and ascended Lord and that he has been called, like Jeremiah, to be a prophet to the Nations. He says as much himself in his letter to the Galatians chapter 1 verse 15 and 16.
Through conversion, he didn’t become another person. Tom Wright says
“Saul’s vision on the road to Damascus equipped him with an entirely new perspective, though one which kept its roots firm and deep within his previous covenantal theology. Israel’s theology had been summed up and achieved in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom had come and he, Saul, had been summoned to be its agent”
So conversion here means a new vocation for Saul. It doesn’t mean that he became another person or that he had become other than how God had conceived him to be.
He was the same man but a man who had been completely turned around to go in a different direction. He would now pour all his zeal, energy and many gifts into taking Christ to the world.
Paul had been consecrated for this and there was no getting away from it. It led him where he thought he would never go and got him doing things he never dreamt of doing. God had always been in control, because God had consecrated him for this special purpose.
Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, Ananias, Paul were all marked for a special service. What about you and me? Did God know us before we were conceived in the womb? Have you and I been consecrated for special work? Do we all have a vocation? What is our vocation and are we prepared to accept it, or will we be afraid to put ourselves out of our comfort zones? We may be afraid, we may be reluctant, like Jeremiah, Moses, Ananias and especially Paul who was so adamantly against Jesus, but I believe that God is working his purpose out in you and me and that he will have his way!
As the voice and light of Jesus break into our lives, we will be converted as Ananais and Paul were; like them we will find a vocation and we will become the people that God has created us to be. We are part of God’s plan and there will be no getting away from it. Hear the Word of the Lord:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you I appointed you”
To what? I am sure that he will let you know.
Amen
Revd. Christine Bloomfield.
Anglican Church of Saint Alban, Strasbourg
The Conversion of Paul
Jer; 1.1-14 ; Psalm 67 ; Acts 9.1-22 ; Matt. 19.27-30
