DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL

(Original sermon by Jay Crow)

Matthew 13:34, 35 “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.” A parable is a story. Without a story Jesus would not speak.

Long, long ago in a country far, far from here, there was a certain king, so the story goes, and the king was very upset because of the unfaithfulness of his queen. This king was so completely distraught and disillusioned with women --the experience of having the one he loved most in life become unfaithful, and betray his love, and deceitfully misguide him about her feelings ---this king decided to, and announced to the kingdom, that he was going to take a woman every evening to himself as a wife and the following morning have her executed before she could ever have the opportunity to betray his love and trust. He determined that he would never again be the object of an unfaithful queen. And, so it was thought the course of a number of years, the king kept his vow and the women became terrified that they would be chosen next. 

But there lived in the kingdom a certain young girl who was perhaps a little more wise, a little more cleaver than all the other women who had encountered the king.  She determined that she was going to find a way to stop this rain of terror that the population had experienced.  She thought to herself, "I've got a plan."  And so she volunteered herself one night in marriage, knowing what may await her in the morning. That night when the young girl came to the king she found him restless and unable to sleep so she began to tell him a story. The story became so interesting and the king became so interested that it wasn't very long until the king and the girl found themselves in the dawn and the early morning and the story was still unfinished and the king found himself unable to continue the tradition of having his wife done away with the next morning. He became so engrossed in the story that he forgot his commitment------

I'm thinking that the men are saying, "Yes, I knew it all the time. The moral of this story is, women are just a bunch of story tellers."  That's not entirely what I wanted to suggest, but it's not far off either.

I think it's important-----

Let me be a Paul Harvey here and tell you the rest of the story. The literature that we are all familiar with titled, "The Arabian Knights" – are the STORIES that this girl, over the course of 1001 nights, had spun to the king.  These were the STORIES----And now you know the rest of the story.

I.   WHY ARE STORIES WORTH TELLING?

     1.   Stories have a mysterious power to draw people into them, a magnetism.

          (1   STORIES deal almost entirely with people.  We are interested in people.

          (2   I saw this clearly demonstrated at Canadian National Exhibition. I saw a million dollars in brand new gold peaces. They were laid up just perfectly in tiers, water fountains spouted up around them, and revolving colored lights changed the glow to all the colors of the rain bow.  It was beautiful.  Near by there was a demonstration of clothing.  Simple manikins were dressed in the suits that the company was selling, but interspersed between the manikins were live models who stood as motionless as the manikins.  The humans looked so much like the manikins that you would have just passed by but you thought you saw one of them wink.  Surely you were wrong.  You look and stair and wonder, then about the time your ready to move on you think you see a finger twitch.  Now the point is people took one glance at the gold and walked on, but crows of people stood and watched the manikins for a long, long time.  People are interested in people.

     2.   Stories have a tremendous power to transform lives.

          (1   The young girl demonstrated this clearly.

          (2   The king and a 1,000 woman would also agree.

          (3   We have already noted that Jesus never spoke without telling stories.

          (4   John 7:45-46 “Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him in?" "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared.’” Notice the power Jesus demonstrated. Notice how he changed lives.

          (5   The person that reads a good book is a different person when he finishes it.

          (6   Perhaps this is the reason why some of our lives are unchanged. We are spending too much time between the bed covers and not enough time between The Book covers.

II.  EXAMPLES OF STORIES WORTH TELLING:

     1.   My father was a story teller, mother a story reader. They filled my boyhood mind full of adventure and excitement.

     2.   The Bible is the world’s best story book.

          (1   If we would go back 1000's of years and play the devils advocate, and ask Jews why they believed in God, they would tell you a story. Perhaps it would be of the, plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea or of how God intervened in the life of Gideon.

      3.  One very clever story teller was Nathan. Our story is found in 2 Samuel 12:1-7.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."

Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!"

Nathan could have lost his head over this encounter but he was successful because he told a story.

       4. Jesus was the best, with out a story he wouldn't speak.

Story teller, he was the story telling kind, he painted pictures in their mind, it was the way he helped them see, how things were really suppose to be.

               (1 The Jews pressed Jesus with a religious question. Jesus answered with a story.

               (2 Lawyers try to trap him with a religious concepts. Jesus countered with a story.

               (3 To the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan.

               (4 To the question, “Why do you eat with sinners?” Jesus answered with the story of the Prodigal son.

               (5) Jesus clearly demonstrated the best way to evangelize is by telling STORIES.

III. DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL?

     1.   Before Moriah, Abraham had a great many things, but he didn't have a story to tell.

     2.   Before the burning bush Moses had a lot of experiences but he had no story.

     3.   I don't think Paul had a story until—Oh, he could argue with the best, he could flash his pedigree but his life completely changed one day and from that moment forward he always had a story to tell, and hundreds, if not thousands of people have been brought to Jesus because of Paul’s story.

     4.   The 1st Cent Church grew faster than it ever has since.  Why?

          (1   The early church told their story.

          (2   Peter and John said, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,”Acts 4:20.

Summary:

     1.   Stories have a mysterious power to draw and hold people’s attention and to transform their lives.

     2.  Thousands of examples show the value of stories.

     3.  If you have a story to tell, tell it!

     4.  If you don't have a story to tell, I invite you to meet my Jesus. He can change your life just as he did Paul’s and mine. Once you’ve truly met Jesus you will forever have a story worth telling.

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