"But the Lord said to Ananias, 'Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.' "

         The Holy Spirit forms the church and chooses Saul to carry the name of Jesus before Gentiles, kings, and the people of Israel.

Saul carried the name of Jesus – that is, the life of Jesus, the saving grace of Jesus, the authority of Jesus, to people throughout the world.

What is a carrier? I think of that term when it is used to refer to infectious disease. Diseases travel around the world by carriers.

So perhaps we could say that Hermann Jacobsen visits some distant part of the world, and then he carries a particular strain of flu back home with him. And soon enough his family has the disease, and then children at his daughter's school, and members of his wife's church, and people who work in his office, and it keeps multiplying until it runs its course. When people receive this flu that Hermann has carried with him, they do not take on the personality of Hermann, they do not talk like him or think his thoughts or agree with his politics. They get sick with the flu he carried.

So the Holy Spirit-formed church looks like Jesus, not like Paul, who was merely the carrier of Jesus to the world. As we talk today about what it means for us to be carriers of Jesus, the point is not to try to repeat the pattern of Paul's life or experiences, but to catch the same risen Lord Jesus that he carried, and to faithfully pass Christ on in our world.

The first place that applies is the conversion of Paul. Too often I hear Christians begin their personal testimony by saying "I did not have a 'Damascus Road' experience like Paul," meaning "I don't really measure up as a Christian, don't expect too much out of me."

But that is not the point. It is not the type of experience Paul had; it is the reality of Jesus in your life that matters.

What was it that happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? Paul was a Pharisee, a righteous, morally upright lover of God who was zealous for what he believed. He believed that Jesus of Nazareth had died a cruel death, a death that Paul thought proved Jesus was not blessed by God. So Paul was upset that now people of faith, sincere Jews, were coming to believe in these stories about Jesus; that he was risen, that he was in fact the Son of God. Out of his zeal for God, and his love for God's people, Paul set about to correct what he thought to be a mistaken belief. There was a large Jewish population in Damascus, Ajith Fernando says tens of thousands of people, and Paul goes there to correct, to purify, and to protect the people of God.

On the way, he has what could be seen as a typical Old Testament prophet's experience of God. He sees a light – the glory of God, not a bolt of lightning. He falls to the ground, a sign of humility and listening. There is a voice, a revelation to Paul, in this case by the risen Jesus of Nazareth. Out of that meeting comes a commission, a sending.

Paul's reaction was to realize that he had been wrong about Jesus. This is his conversion. He comes to meet the risen Lord. He is humble enough to admit that he was wrong, and he was willing to change his thinking, his believing, and his vocation. In I Timothy 1:13 he speaks of this event as one of being shown mercy.

Paul's conversion was not so much a matter of him choosing to follow Jesus, or deciding to make a commitment. It was the surrender of his life to the living Lord, whose existence he could not deny. Fernando writes, "Conversion is at root . . . a surrender to the supreme authority of Jesus." Paul surrendered; he re-oriented his life towards the risen Lord.

Paul spends three days in fasting and prayer. The commentary says a period of fasting without food or water was the most severe and intense. Only people who were in a state of repentance or who were seeking God would undertake such a fast. Paul prays for three days. In that time of prayer he had a vision, an assurance, that a man would come and he would regain his sight. That happens when Ananias comes to see him, and he is filled with the Holy Spirit.

Then he begins to preach. In his preaching he carries the name of Jesus to all people. He begins with those in the synagogue, those he came to "protect." He loves these people; they are close to his heart. He does not tell them his story, so that they might seek a "Damascus Road" experience. He uses the scripture to prove to them (a strong word) that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. It appears he has learned the use of scripture employed by the apostles, and by Stephen and Philip. He carries Jesus to the people.

What does it mean for us to be carriers of the name of Jesus to our world?

If we are to be carriers, we must begin with our own experience of receiving Christ, our own conversion or surrender. There is a need for each of us to validate our own story internally. We will not be carriers if we question or downplay the story of grace in our lives. That is why it is so important not to try to live up to Paul's particular experience, or to try to fit a pattern we see in others. Don't feel like a lack of lightning disqualifies you.

Rather, open your heart to Jesus, and to experiences of the grace he will bring personally to you. You don't need to fear emotion, nor do you need to try to match the emotion of another person. You do not need to feel defeated because your experience does not seem to match that of Paul or the fellow on TV. Your personal experience of Christ is both important and valid. Simply open your heart to Christ in whatever way he might choose to reveal himself to you. You should have an expectation that you will experience Christ in a way that is real and powerful for you personally, in a way that fits you.

We carry the grace that we have received. We receive what we open our hearts to. Jesus says people who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. That means we need to be willing to feel unfilled, to be hungry for God and willing to hold that hunger, not allowing other things to fill that space. You cannot manufacture an experience of Christ. But you can prepare your heart for Christ. You can put yourself in a place of blessing, and patiently wait.

The experience of Christ, of grace, led Paul to pray. During the time that he was blind, he prayed. Sometimes we experience blindness of a different sort. Sometimes we feel the presence of Christ, we hear his call, and it frightens us, we struggle with the decision to commit our lives to him. We cannot see clearly, we are blind. We want to surrender, and we want to keep control of our lives. We want what Christ gives, and we want what the world offers. In that tension, in that spiritual struggle, it is time to pray.

Paul was blind for a few days. That must have been frightening. He had spent his life studying, reading, being an expert in the law. Now he could not see. What would he do? During those few days he prayed, and he received a vision, an assurance from God that his sight would be restored.

I think there are a lot of Christians who live with various forms of disappointment, doubt or injury – having been hurt by someone. In those frightening experiences of loss, when we are not sure what to do next, we can easily become bitter or resentful. In prayer, there can come an assurance that we will be restored. You do not have to remain angry, hurt or resentful all your life. The risen Lord will come to you with healing grace.

The assurance that comes in times of prayer leads to commission. Paul began to preach that Jesus is the Christ. He began to share his faith, although it was very new to him. I desire for us to be more open and free in the sharing of our faith. I desire for our church to live out an evangelism that both serves people in need and invites them to know Christ. I desire that we might discover our voice, in our community.

One of our mission statements says simply, "We share our faith." In what ways do you share your faith? Thinking very broadly and creatively and intentionally, what does it mean for you to share your faith? Notice that when Paul begins to preach, it is not to the circle of believers in Damascus, but rather to the people in the synagogue, the very people he had come to see, thinking he was going to protect them. These were people, who did not know the risen Christ. These were people that in some way, he loved; he carried them in his heart, even if earlier in a misguided way. These were the people who were most like him.

  Who do you hold in your heart? That is a question I want us to ask in a variety of ways over the next few months. It is the question that leads us to share our faith. It is in fact the question of "The Journey," which will be our theme this fall. Paul was led to go on a journey around the Mediterranean world, sharing his faith. We want to be on a faith-sharing journey as well. For we also have been chosen to be carriers of the name of Jesus to the people of the world.

Amen.