SHIRLEY WANG HEARD STORIES from her father about his friendship with Charles Barkley. Yes, Sir Charles, the former NBA star. Lin Wang was a cat litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. Wang would tell Shirley stories of his friendship with Barkley. The first time Shirley heard the story she didn’t even know who Barkley was.
But there was something compelling about her dad’s story and this unlikely friendship. So she started investigating. First, she Googled Charles Barkley. He seemed pretty famous — and definitely not like anyone who would be friends with her dad. Eventually, she interviewed her dad to find out more about this strange relationship. One day, she actually met and talked with Sir Charles himself.
It’s a compelling story. Seems that Barkley and Wang were both staying at the same hotel. They were the only ones in the bar. They started chatting, then went to dinner together. Returned to the bar and talked some more. They did this night after night. From then on when they were in the same city on business, they would hang out. Wang went to Barkley’s mother’s funeral in Leeds, Alabama. When Wang died, Barkley came to Iowa.
“It’s such a simple story, a story that’s been part of my life,” Shirley says “and it’s just an added bonus that it has resonated with so many people from so many different corners of the Internet.” A compelling story of two unlikely friends. Shared now with family and strangers. And today, you. Imagine sharing our story of faith that is so compelling that all who hear it are amazed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/18/her-dads-friendship-with-charles-barkley-made-you-cry-this-is-why-she-shared-it/?utm_term=.0c5618fb246e
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WHEN WE LIVE OUR FAITH, it becomes contagious and likely to spread to others. Christianity is most inspiring, most influential when wrapped in living persons. That’s why God sent Jesus into the world on that first Christmas. So we can see the truth wrapped up in a person. The most effective argument for Christianity is a real Christian. People simply want to know does Christianity really make a difference.
Bad epidemics, such as the flu, keep us in bed and isolated. We don’t want other people to catch what we have. You and I tend to treat Christianity like the flu. We keep it to ourselves. But Christianity is a good epidemic. Tell friends all about it. Mingle in the world. Let other people catch the Christian flu from us. We delight in sharing news that we think will benefit others as it has benefited us. Why not what the coming of Jesus has meant for us?
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THE MESSAGE OF LOVE and healing and forgiveness is appealing. The movie “Woodlawn” takes place in 1970s Birmingham. In the film, a newly desegregated high-school football team must learn to get along despite years of hostility. When a sports minister named Hank gives the football team a message of love and forgiveness in Jesus, nearly all the players leave behind their burdens of fear and hatred and become brothers. The faith of the team inspires an epidemic of faith among the team, other high-school students, and staff, and even spreads through Birmingham.
At one point in the film, the minister, Hank, tells the players, “When you play for yourself you can be great, but when you play for something higher than yourself, that’s when something amazing happens.” We seek something higher than ourselves. In that pursuit, we find that through Jesus we are loved and worth more than we could ever imagine. Now that is a message worthy of telling and starting an epidemic.
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WHEN WE LIVE OUT OUR FAITH, it becomes compelling, contagious, and convincing. People believe the good news of the gospel because they see its effect in your life and they can’t deny that it’s real.
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THERE’S THE STORY of a schoolteacher who was assigned to tutor a child in the hospital. The boy had been seriously burned in an accident and had been in the hospital for some time and needed to be caught up on his education. The teacher went to the hospital to help the boy with his verbs and participles. When she got there she learned the boy was in the critical care unit and that he had been burned so badly that he could hardly talk.
Nevertheless, this teacher tried her best to teach him irregular verbs and dangling participles. She left deflated, not sure that she had accomplished anything. But when she returned the next day, the head nurse was all smiles. She said:
“I don’t know what you did yesterday but it made a major change in the boy. We were worried about him because he had given up. He wasn’t trying to get well. He just lay there waiting to die. But ever since you came, his attitude changed. He’s talking; he’s working with us. He’s fighting back. It’s a miracle.”
The teacher had no idea what she had done to make a difference. Some weeks later, after the boy was released from the hospital, he explained why the teacher’s coming had made such a difference. It was a simple realization that came to him that first night after the teacher visited. He said, “They told me I would live, but I didn’t believe them. I thought they were just humoring me. But when you came, it made all the difference. I realized that they wouldn’t be sending a teacher to work with a dying boy on irregular verbs and dangling participles.
The words of his doctor, his nurses, his parents didn’t convince him. Their words weren’t enough. But the action of the teacher made all the difference. In her actions, he saw undeniable proof that he was expected to live, and he believed it.
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ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER than words. Actions are more compelling, more contagious, more convincing. Your actions can bear witness — a true and powerful witness — to the faith that you confess and believe, that the very Son of God was born in Bethlehem to save us.
(The idea for this sermon is taken from All I Want for Christmas by James W. Moore.)
