April 16, 2025
A Heart of Gratitude
“I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
This will date me, but one of my all-time favorite shows is The Andy Griffith Show. As someone who grew up in North Carolina, it is almost a prerequisite to know every episode by heart! One of my favorite episodes is when Andy comes into the gas station where Gomer works and saves a snoozing Gomer from some smoking oil rags that are about to catch fire.
A dazed and disoriented Gomer suddenly realizes the danger he was in and declares to Andy in his inimitable high-pitched southern twang, “You saved my life!” As a token of his gratitude, Gomer vows to serve Andy for the rest of his days. True to his word, Gomer arrives at Andy’s house early the next morning and waits on him hand and foot in typical bungling fashion.
Day after day, he would be Andy’s shadow, seeking to serve him in whatever way possible- however imperfectly his help would be. Of course, it drove Andy so crazy that he would hide from Gomer. Finally, Andy had to concoct a scenario where he tricked Gomer into believing he had saved Andy’s life to cancel the debt and return life back to the way things were before.
That’s way more than you cared to know about a silly show, but the episode does teach a great lesson in gratitude.
As we look at today’s passage, it’s clear that the Apostle Paul had one thing in common with the fictional character Gomer - he never got over what Christ did for him.
Before knowing Christ personally, Paul was known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a well-educated religious man who thought he was doing God a favor by persecuting followers of Christ. He cast his vote of approval at the stoning of Stephen - one of Christ’s early followers and leaders - and personally would search high and low to have followers of Christ taken as prisoners to Jerusalem. In Acts 9, he even went to the High Priest and even had papers drawn up authorizing him to arrest any Christ followers he encountered on his trip to Damascus.
But little did Saul know that God had a divine appointment for him on the road to Damascus as he would have a face-to-face encounter with Jesus Christ that would forever change his life.
As Saul was traveling to Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven shone down on him. Saul dropped to his knees as he heard Jesus ask, “Saul, Saul. Why do you persecute me?”
In that moment, Saul’s life was transformed. Not only was his name changed, but his life’s purpose was changed. He went from one of the greatest persecutors of Christ to becoming perhaps the greatest ambassador for Christ this world has ever known.
That’s why Paul could say that he is crucified with Christ. Saul’s old life was buried in that grave. As he would declare in another passage, Paul was a new creation. The old was gone. The new had come.
And Paul never got over that fact, serving Christ with every ounce of passion he had in his body, declaring to the known world the message of Christ.
There are some important lessons to learn from Saul/Paul.
You are never beyond the reach of Christ. By all accounts, Saul was an enemy of Christ for much of his life. But Jesus had plans to redeem his story. Over 2,000 years later, we are still feeling the effects of Saul/Paul’s transformation story.
No matter what you have done to this point, your life is a comma, not a period. In other words, your story is still being written as long as you have breath in your lungs.
Your transformation begins at the same place where Saul’s did - at the foot of the cross. It’s in humbling ourselves before Christ and acknowledging our need for him that life transformation can truly take place.
Our motivation to serve Christ should not come as a sense of duty, but out of a heart of gratitude for what Christ accomplished for us on the cross and in the resurrection and that he loved us enough to pursue us to the ends of the earth. May we never get over what Christ has done for us!