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  Date / Time: 3/26/2008 3:57 AM UTC

  Half -Time In The Game Of Life
  

  Half Time in The Game of Life
  Acts 9:1-12
  
  Saul like a lot of people, was very religious. He was careful not to do this and careful to do that.  He wore the right clothing.  He knew all the right people.  He went to all the right places.  He said all the right things. As we said, he was very religious.   Religious people frighten me.  I find religious people so disturbing because they are often times the number one purveyors of ignorance.
  
   Well what do you mean Reverend, aren't you religious?  No!  I am not. I am excited to proclaim to the world today that I Cleonies Odom, Jr. am indeed a Christian- a follower of Christ!  Dear friends we hear so much talk today about alternative lifestyles, but I'm here to tell you today that anything the world has to offer pales in comparison to the lifestyle that God created and intended for us to live !  That my friends is Christianity- a way of life so radiant, so vibrant and so complete that even the vilest sinner can not help but be changed!  Cold, empty religion simply can't compare.
  
   Then what is religion?  Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. For example, in Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine, religion does not refer to belief in "God" or a transcendent Absolute.  Instead, Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought… it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.”[6] According to this definition, religion refers to one's primary worldview and how this dictates one's thoughts and actions.
  
   Religion may also be defined as a strict set of rules or values based primarily on tradition.  Dearly beloved I'm here to tell you today that more often than not, religion has nothing at all to do with God.  Deliver me from religious people.  For it was religious people that brutally murdered our Lord.  Dearly beloved it was religious people who were responsible for the crusades of old.  Dear friends religious people are responsible for the terror attacks on 911 and the many terror attacks thrust upon the rest of the world and it's religious folk who are responsible for all of the hell in the church today.  Religious people are easy to spot.  They're the ones who always want to be seen doing what they do.  If they donate to the church, they want to make sure you know just how much and when.  Religious people are often dedicated to their belief and completely unaware of just how lost they truly are.  Saul was no different.
  
    He was even well-educated.  As a matter of fact, his training under Gamaliel was the finest available.  His intentions and efforts were sincere.  He was a good Pharisee, who knew the Bible and sincerely believed that this Christian movement was dangerous to Judaism.   The Pharisees were a religious sect so caught up on rules and regulations, traditions and do's and dont's until they didn't even recognize God when he was starring them right in the face.    Know anybody like that?  Thus Saul hated Christianity and persecuted early believers unmercifully. It can even be said that Saul was relentless.  Saul was so feared by the early church that even the mention of his name struck terror in their hearts.  Scripture records a conversation between Ananias and our Lord.  Here we see Ananias'  fear as Christ instructs him to go to the house of Judas on straight street and find a man from Tarsus named Saul.
  
  "Lord, Ananias answered, " I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem."  You see sometimes in order to help others, we must ourselves get out of our own comfort zones.  Ananias was afraid because Saul's reputation preceded him, but as we read on we hear the Lord saying, "Go! This man is my chosen vessel to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel."
  
    Earlier in our text we read where Saul had gotten permission to travel to Damascus to further his persecutory efforts, but what Saul didn't realize was that his life was about to be so dramatically and forever changed that even his name would no longer be the same, what Saul didn't realize was that the divine coach had just designed a brand new game plan, what Saul didn't realize was that his life had just entered half-time.
  
  In the sport of American football or the N.F.L.  There is a point in the middle of the game where both teams leave the field of play and return to the locker rooms.  This brief intermission is called half-time.  It is often depicted in movies as that point in the game where the coach or some ailing teammate gives a stirring, heart wrenching speech or request such as , "win one for the gipper".  It is often a time of reflection and adjustment.  There have been several legendary come from behind victories that were the result of half-time.  One can also consider this brief respite a time of readjustment and renewed focus. As a result, It is often necessary to completely throw out an ineffective game-plan for one more strategically sound.
  
  In life just as in the game of football, it is often necessary to re-strategise or re-focus or re-position ones self for success.  Such examples are commonplace in the entertainment world where it is not uncommon to hear of some celebrity who has "reinvented" himself.  Either through weight loss, victory over some addiction, or the creation of a new look or sound.  While all of this sounds great on the surface, a more in-depth look reveals that often only the packaging has changed.  
  
  A few years ago Michael Jackson advised the world to, "take a look at yourself and make a change" with his hit song Man in the Mirror.
  
  But I'd like to pose a question; How often do we take an up-close and personal look at ourselves?  How often are we forced to examine the good, bad and the ugly about our lives, personalities, our families and more?  Although the self-help industry continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, very few people seldom come face to face with themselves.  In order for profound and lasting change to occur in an individual's life,  he or she must become so painfully or so acutely aware of who they are or of their situation until they are absolutely sick and tired of being sick and tired.  In the spiritual realm this is called being Godly sorrowful for one's sinful and unregenerate state, but even then and even though one may be moved to repentance only God can bring about change.  Only God can create within us a new heart.  Only God can renew our minds.  Only God can cleanse mans' rancid and sin stained soul.
  
   In our text, we find Saul of Tarsus traveling on the damascus road en-route to do as he had done so many times before.  We find Saul of Tarsus breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples.  Saul was well known to the early Christians for his brutality.  In fact he was greatly feared.  But on the damascus road, God stopped by.  On the damascus road, God flexed his divine muscle and proved to the world that he could take a murder and turn him into one of the greatest evangelist the world has ever seen.  Yes, on the damascus road, God proved that only he is in control of all and that he is controlled by none.   If God could man handle and transform the feared Saul of Tarsus, dearly beloved I want you to know that you to can be given a brand new start.  I want everyone out there to know that yes, even you can be transformed.
  
   Dearly beloved Saul is but one example of the incredible life transforming Power of God.  Saul is but one example of the profound fact that your beginning or even your present is not always an indicator of your finish.  The Bible is littered with them, but don't take my word for it.  One day Jesus had a conversation with a woman who was considered by society to be nothing more than an outcast.  Because of her mixed race and checkered past the Jews had no dealings with her. But after just one conversation with the divine coach.  After just one conversation with Jesus, she gained a whole new perspective, after just one conversation with Jesus, she got a new game-plan and as a result, she completely forgot  about her water jar because she was too busy running to the town shouting, "Come see a man..."
  
   I'm so glad that God sees not as man seeth, for man looketh only on the surface at the outward appearance while God is concentrated and laser focused on the heart.  God sees who we can become in-spite of who we may currently be.  Regardless of your past or maybe even your present, you don't have to finish the way you started.  You can indeed begin again.  As the old adage goes, God allows u-turns.
  
   There's someone listening to the sound of my voice that's struggling with guilt from their past.  I say to you today that you don't have to struggle.  You don't have to live life stuck in yesterday.  You don't have to live shackled by shame. I dare say to you today that you don't have to live life in the confines of somebody else's limited definition of you.  Dear friends it is written, 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creation."  No matter what you've done, God has never seen a soul so lost, so vile, so defiled that he couldn't find it, clean it up and give it a totally new direction.
  
   Dear friends, this is  half time.  What will you do with it?  Will you go on with life as usual or will you allow the divine coach to change your strategy , re-write your game plan and start a new.  It's half time today, which will you choose?  Will you remain in the same old predicament, playing the same old loosing hand, hanging around the same old looser friends, thinking the same old looser thoughts.  Will you keep on doing the same thing that got you the results you hate!  Dearly beloved insanity has been defined as "doing the same thing while expecting different results."
  
    If you are ready for a brand new start.  If you recognize the fact that you are in the half-time of your life and are in need of a new game-plan, there are three three steps you must take:
  
  Step 1.  Repent - Repentance is simply a turning away from sin, it's a change in direction from our own destructive and unfulfilling plans to God's good and perfect will.  Repentance involves a good deal more than simply a cessation of an act, but rather it is also a complete restructuring of the mind.  Little wonder Romans 12:2 admonishes us to, "...be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
  
  Step 2. The process of baptism is very simple. You begin by standing, sitting, or kneeling in some water. Another Christian( Minister) then lowers you under the water and then brings you back up out of the water. You could also literally call this “immersion.”
  
  Because some religious folk sprinkle water on people instead of immersing them, the obvious question is whether this is OK. Since the only consistent answer around the world comes from the Bible, we recommend using it to find your answers. It is interesting that nowhere in the Bible does anything but “immersion” take place. That is, baptism is always by immersion.
  
  This makes sense if you realize that “baptize” is a transliteration of the original Greek word baptizw (baptizo). In turn, baptizo comes from the root word baptw (bapto), a term used in the first century for immersing a garment first into bleach and then into dye, both cleansing and changing the color of the cloth.[1] (Note its similarity to baptism's cleansing of sin and becoming a new person through Christ.) Stated another way, when you process cloth to change its color, you are said to “baptize” it. If sprinkling of any kind was to be practiced, a different Greek word would have been used, but it was not.
  
  Step 3. - Live - Everybody dies, dying is as involuntary as breathing.  The challenge for us is to live instead of merely existing.  Living for Christ involves the daily laying aside of our own selfish desires to follow Christ, putting all of our energy and resources at his disposal and trusting in him to guide us.  This is to be done not only because it's right, but also because it's an expression of gratitude that our sins have been completely forgiven.  Living for Christ is the ultimate high, it is the absolute trip, it is the ever widening adventure- each day is better than the first.  Even during times of struggle; life in Christ provides a peace that the world cannot understand.  That peace is not always the absence of conflict, but rather that quiet assurance that whatever be the tide, God will take care of me. 
  
  
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