NOTE: This is a Sermon by Tony Yim, Associate Paster SLUMC

Let him know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766

Sermon - Tony Yim - Sunday
June 13, 2004 9:00 a.m.
"Your Damascus Call"
Acts 22.6-16
In Your Damascus Call the Lord beckons you to serve him in a unique capacity, for a particular purpose. Are you wondering, "Why me?" It's because who you are. A sage said, "If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world, it will come through the expression of your own personality-that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature." (Bruce Barton, 1920)
What if you're on a calling already? Or, "you've been there, done that." Conflicting calls can be a dilemma. There's only one clear call, set in verse: Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) Perhaps, Emily Post can help when you've a prior commitment. She was asked, "What is the correct procedure when one is invited to the White House and has a previous engagement?" She answered, "An invitation to lunch or dinner at the White House is a command, and automatically cancels any other engagement." (Good News Broadcaster) A Christian's daily itinerary should have embedded in it the priority claim, the possibility of the Lord calling.
Saul was already on a calling of his choosing. "While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me." Scripture clearly states his mission, "Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogue at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem."
Saul despised Christians. He and his group had enough of Stephen's criticism and they grabbed him. "Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of - - - Saul." He became an accomplice to murder. And he wasn't finished.
His reputation for brutalizing Christians, men, women and children was frightening. Christians feared him. A disciple named Ananias, whom the Lord had asked to help Saul, tried to beg off. "Lord, I have heard from many about his man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name."
Why bother calling Saul? His agenda's jammed full.
Even in our world and time, we've known that God calls believers from their self-chosen pursuit. Like Albert Schweitzer, who lived from 1875 to 1965. Early in his life, Schweitzer was brilliant in several fields: German philosophy, organ music, and theology. He was an authority in multiple pursuits.
One day, Dr. Schweitzer as principal of St. Thomas Theological College at the University of Strasbourg, was going through a pile of mail when he found a little magazine, called the Paris Missionary Society. In truth, it was addressed to another institution and to another person down the street. He glanced through it, but read carefully an article titled, The Needs of the Congo Mission. When he finished, he said, "My search is over." The call of the Paris Missionary Society emphasized the need for missionaries who were physicians. So, Dr. Schweitzer returned to medical school to become an M.D. (Charles L. Allen, All Things Are Possible Through Prayer, pp. 30-31.) I've heard that Schweitzer found science courses particularly challenging. When he studied those subjects late into the night, he would place his feet in a bucket of ice water to keep awake.
Consider Schweitzer's calling carefully. Was it just an accident that the postman mistakenly delivered that little magazine to him? Was it only chance that Schweitzer's mind was open to receive direction? Without that postal mis-delivery and Schweitzer's incredible Christian dedication to the welfare of African patients, would he have been considered one of the greatest Christians of all times?
Nearer to us, is the story of a lady named Lois Secrist. When Lois was 15 years old, she promised God she'd be a missionary, either to Africa or India.
However, at 23, Lois married Galon Prater. Lois confessed shortly after her marriage, "I knew I had married out of the will of the Lord. But I had fallen in love. I always thought I would win him for God."
Galon did accept Jesus Christ. He then began sharing Jesus. Before he died on January 9, 1988, he rejoiced with Lois that he had accepted Jesus and having shared the Good News.
After Galon's death, Lois thought briefly about her childhood promise to God. But her children discouraged her. At age 76, she felt her time to serve as a missionary had past. She prayed, "Lord, I'm too old to go now. I can't do this." (Christianity Today, It's Never too Late to Keep A Promise to God, by Gail Wood.)
Who'd blame Lois?
God's will for Saul was radical change, from a life of hate to a life of love. As Saul rode to Damascus, "suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him." Knocked to the ground, he heard a voice, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." (Acts 9.3-5) Saul could've recalled the sight of a bruised and bleeding and reeling Stephen gazing into heaven shouting, "Look, I see the heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" That could've been the moment that Saul realized it was the risen Jesus Christ speaking!
Saul became a whole new person! He accepted his Damascus Call and became a Christian. Saul became Paul, the architect of the Christian church. The Lord's grace healed him. I Peter 2.24 explains his healing, and ours: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."
The grace of God in the Bible is awesome. It can annihilate an enemy by conversion, turning an adversary into a friend. And the grace of God is in the world too.
His grace transformed Lois Secrist. What's she doing?
About six months after Galon's death, Lois was watching a Christian TV program in her Lake Stevens home, a suburb of Seattle. An evangelist named Nora Lam, a Chinese Christian woman was asking the television audience to consider the call of becoming a missionary. Lam invited viewers to travel with her to the Philippines and the Taiwan Islands for three weeks. Guess what? Lois went.
She went on two more trips. On her third one, she went from church to church on the Bataan Peninsula. There were many needs. Orphans especially made her heart ache.

At home for the last time, she was determined to build an orphanage on the Bataan Peninsula. In 1990, Lois sold her home, her car, her furniture, and flew back to the Philippines. She looked and searched everywhere for land to build an orphanage with her funds, but nothing seemed to arise. She got on her knees and prayed, "God, if I'm going to do this, you're going to have to help." Two days later, a woman offered Lois twelve and a half acres for $17,000.
She purchased it at once. A pastor who happened to be a contractor built an orphanage for her. She named it King's Garden.
Thus, according to Christianity Today's report, Lois at age 87, is providing a home for 35 orphans. She's learned it's never too late to say yes. What about Your Damascus Call? Why should God's calling take priority? Because unless it does, you might miss being all you can be. A person you've been hearing about recently made certain that God took priority in his life. He would've been so much less if he hadn't. He might've remained a reputable citizen of Dixon, Illinois, all his life. Perhaps, he could've accepted being typecast as a famous movie actor. Or, retired as a former governor. If he had not been opened to the call of The Big Fellow Upstairs, by permitting him to have priority in his life, would he have become the 40th - - -?
Our Lois Secrist accepted the priority of God's call. And she's becoming all she can be. You may want to do the same. After all, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Old or young, we're on our last cruise." We want it to mean something. Amen.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766