Growing in faith in the Lord Jesus

So today's passage is taken from Book of Acts chapter 9, verse 19 to 31.

Acts 9:19–31

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Acts chapter 9, verse 19 to 31.

Acts 9:19–31

Let's hear the God's word today.

Verse 19.

And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?

But Saul increased all the more in strength and confined the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul.

They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him.

But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, knowing him in a basket.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him,

and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.

And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.

And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

Let's believe and respond to God's true and living word.

Henry, do you want to come on up?

Henry, you probably don't need much of an introduction, but let me just introduce you in case some people don't know you.

So those that have recently joined Watermark in the last two years or so might not know Henry and Florence.

Henry and Florence were wonderful, wonderful members of the Watermark congregation for about three years, two years or so,

before they relocated back to Europe and moved to Europe two and a half years ago and are back in Hong Kong visiting.

And when I heard that they were visiting, I said, Henry, we'd love to have you to continue to open up God's word.

So Henry's going to be preaching this morning.

But just if you think, who is this person I've never seen before?

Where did he come from?

And I might not see again for a couple of months.

Henry and Florence, great to have you back with us this morning.

This church family have missed you guys the last two years, and it's lovely to have you with us.

So Henry, thank you for opening up God's word to us.

Thank you, Kevin.

Thanks for that.

Welcome and thank you for asking me to preach.

It's a great privilege and honor to do that, of course.

It's just great to be back in Hong Kong.

Kevin didn't say that I'm Irish.

My wife is French.

We're now living in France, but we lived more than half our lives in Hong Kong.

So Hong Kong is our real home.

And it's wonderful to be back in Watermark, to see so many of you that we do know and many others that we don't know.

But, hey, that means the church is growing.

And what a great venue you have here.

Wow, it's fantastic.

We've been praying for that as well.

And may the Lord bless you as a church and as a community of saints, of God's people who meet and worship here.

And as you minister and serve the Lord, may this be a great venue to do that, that his work may grow and that his kingdom would be extended.

So our passage this morning has already been read to us by Sherman, Acts 9, verses 19 to 31.

Acts 9:19–31

A couple of years ago, I took a course in theology.

And this particular course was entitled Conversion and Transformation.

One of the assignments of that course was to write an essay about my own conversion and transformation and ongoing spiritual development.

In doing some research for the essay, I came across a simple but profound statement in one of the required textbooks.

In that book, a church historian called Alan Crater wrote,

Conversion to Christianity involves a change of a person's belief, belonging, and behavior.

The phrase really stuck with me.

Conversion to Christianity involves a change in a person's belief, belonging, and behavior.

You know, in many ways, the book of Acts, certainly the second part of the book of Acts,

could read like an extended reflection on the conversion and transformation of Saul of Tarsus.

Throughout Luke's narrative, it's abundantly clear that Saul's conversion involved a massive change for him

in his belief, in his belonging, and in his behavior.

And so here in Acts 9, 19-31, we discover what happened to Paul after his extraordinary conversion on the Damascus Road,

his encounter with the risen Christ.

Saul's conversion itself, I take it, was not really typical.

People do not normally fall to the ground, are blinded by a blazing light,

and hear the audible voice of the risen Lord Jesus as part of the conversion experience.

But what happened afterwards is typical, or ought to be typical,

of genuine Christian conversion and transformation.

Kevin last week dealt with Saul's conversion on the Damascus Road.

He had the five Ps, remember?

Today I've got the three Bs.

But he talked about how God deeply changes us when we know Christ.

And today, we're going to be looking at what does a transformed life really look like?

What does it mean to be a Christian?

What are the principles from Paul's post-conversion experience,

his story, that apply to each one of us who say that we're Christians?

Let's find out how belief, belonging, and behavior are changed, are reshaped.

Because we belong to Jesus, we say we're Christians.

But first of all, a little bit of the background of this story from Acts 9.

We should note that Luke actually compresses the story, the timeline.

He uses phrases like several days in verse 19, or after many days in verse 23.

But he doesn't give exact dates.

He doesn't say how long this period lasts for.

But two of Paul's other writings, in Galatians and in 2 Corinthians,

we get little glimpses of the same story.

And we can put it all together to fill the chronological gaps.

We might also note that we're talking about Saul of Tarsus.

That's who Luke refers to him as in this passage.

Up to about chapter 13 in Acts.

And then after that, he becomes Paul.

Paul the Apostle.

Paul was his Roman name, of course, and Saul was his Hebrew name.

And it's the same person.

And I might swap and change the names around a little bit, depending on context,

as we talk about Saul this morning.

Let's piece it together initially from Acts.

After his conversion, Saul stayed several days with the disciples in Damascus.

And then, he started preaching in the synagogues where the Jews met for worship.

He proclaimed that Jesus is the Son of God.

That was his message.

Jesus is the Son of God.

Verse 20.

And as time passed, his arguments grew increasingly powerful.

And he proved that Jesus was the Messiah.

So Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus is the Messiah.

That's what Paul was doing.

And eventually, after some period of time, the opposition against him by the Jews in Damascus

reached such a crescendo that some of his friends had to help him escape through a hole in the wall.

And he left Damascus and went to Jerusalem.

Luke then tells us that, yeah, he went to Jerusalem.

And there he attempted to join the Christians in Jerusalem.

But remember, Paul had left Jerusalem sometime before.

And he was persecuting the Christians.

So they were a bit afraid of him.

Was this a trap?

Who's this guy that's coming back in?

Saul of Tarsus.

He's got a pretty bad name in the Christian community.

Should we?

What's going to happen here?

So a really good guy.

A senior kind of guy in the church.

Barnabas.

His name means encourager.

He said, this man is genuine.

His conversion is real.

God has really entered this man's life and transformed him.

You can welcome him.

So over a period of time in Jerusalem, Saul met with Cephas.

That's Peter.

He met with James, the brother of the Lord Jesus.

I'd love to have heard those conversations.

Can you just imagine what they sat down and chatted about?

And he was welcomed into the community.

But actually, it's from a passage in Galatians that we get the chronology here.

And so this is what it says.

Then after three years, I went to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him 15 days.

So it's pretty obvious.

Three years, he had been north in Damascus or the general vicinity.

But his time in Jerusalem only lasted two days.

And during those two weeks in Jerusalem, Saul again spoke boldly in the name of Jesus.

And he debated with the Hellenistic or Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem.

Again, opposition against him intensified.

There was another plot to kill him.

That's the second plot now, Damascus and now Jerusalem.

And so the Christians in Jerusalem escorted him to Caesarea on the coast where he got a ship and sailed to his hometown,

which of course was Tarsus in the province of Cilicia in modern-day Turkey.

It's also from Galatians that we learn that during those years, we don't get it from Luke in Acts,

but Galatians tells us that during his time in Damascus, he spent time, an unspecified amount of time, in Arabia.

By Arabia, he means the Nabataean kingdom.

And that would be modern-day Jordan and its surrounding regions.

Perhaps Petra is the best-known ancient Nabataean city today.

And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, so this is piecing it all together, Acts, Galatians 1, 2 Corinthians 11,

that he was escaping Damascus from the governor of King Aratas, who was the Nabataean or Arabian king.

So putting it together, Paul had upset the Jews in Damascus by preaching that Jesus is the Messiah,

Jesus is the Son of God, and he must have upset the Nabataeans in Arabia somehow as well,

because they were chasing him, and they were trying to capture him in Damascus.

So that's when he escaped from Damascus, went to Jerusalem, and spent two weeks in Jerusalem.

This map that will appear on the screen shows us basically what happened.

Jerusalem to Damascus, that's with the letters, to persecute the Christians in Damascus,

to capture them, imprison them, bring them back, and maybe even kill them in Jerusalem.

He became a Christian on the road to Damascus, stayed with the Christians there,

went to Arabia, came back to Damascus.

That period of time was three years.

Went to Jerusalem, spent a couple of weeks there, and then eventually,

well, not eventually, after two weeks, he's chased out of Jerusalem again,

goes to Tarsus through Caesarea, and then it's about another 14 years probably before he went back to Jerusalem.

So that's the chronology.

That gives us a little bit of the background story.

But our focus this morning is to look at Saul's example of conversion and transformation.

There's an overarching principle here, that to be a true Christian,

there must be a change in our lives, a change in our beliefs, a change in our belonging,

and a change in our behavior.

So we look at belief, first of all.

Saul of Tarsus was a zealous Pharisee.

He would have won the gold medal for being a zealot Jew,

Orthodox Jew, and as a member of the Pharisees.

He regarded Christianity as a dangerous heresy.

The Torah, the Jewish scriptures,

with the Jewish traditions and observances,

were central to his worldview.

Keep obeying God.

Do the commandments.

Not just the Ten Commandments, but the 623 or whatever number of commandments it is in the Old Testament scriptures.

Do all of those, and you'll be right with God, he believed.

He thought Jesus was a fraud.

A crucified Messiah was impossible in Saul's mind.

I mean, who ever heard of the Messiah being crucified, being put to death?

The scriptures told you that was impossible.

It said that cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

So how could Jesus of Nazareth possibly be God's anointed one?

How could he die under a divine curse?

It was a joke.

I mean, nobody believed that your God died on a cross.

Nobody believed that the one that God had appointed and anointed to be the Savior

would end up crucified by Roman soldiers.

Yet in Damascus, after his conversion, Saul began preaching that Jesus is the Son of God

and the Messiah.

Saul's beliefs had changed.

Saul, along with all the other Jews, had expected a Messiah.

He knew what the Messiah ought to look like, he thought.

He would be a figure of hope, a political liberator for the Jews, a son of David, a king chosen by God

who would rule in righteousness and a peaceful kingdom with the Jews elevated once again throughout the world.

He would inaugurate that kingdom of justice and prosperity and harmony,

and the hated Roman occupiers would be gone.

They looked for the Lion of Judah.

And who did they get?

They got a slain lamb.

They expected the kingdom to be established by violence and force and power.

Instead, it was established through self-sacrificial love.

They expected salvation, God's salvation, to be for the Jews, exclusively for them.

And instead, it was international.

It was for everyone.

It was for the whole world.

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

So what changed it for Saul?

What happened?

Why did his beliefs change?

On the Damascus road, Saul encountered the risen Christ.

He became convinced that the crucified Jesus had been vindicated by God through the resurrection.

The very fact that disqualified Christ or Jesus in Saul's mind, his crucifixion,

was the very thing that became central to his new faith.

This is how one author describes it.

F.F. Bruce says,

Paul found himself instantly compelled by what he saw and heard.

To acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one, was alive after his crucifixion,

vindicated and exalted by God,

and was now conscripting him, Saul, into his service.

What a radical change.

What a transformation had happened.

Years later, Paul puts it together when he wrote one of his letters to the believers,

the Christian believers in Corinthians,

and he said,

this is the core of the Christian gospel.

Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

He was buried.

He was raised on the third day.

And he appeared to many witnesses, 500 at one time.

He appeared to Peter.

He appeared to James.

And Paul says,

he even appeared to me.

I have seen the risen Lord Jesus.

My beliefs have changed entirely.

This is the message, Paul said,

and it's of first importance.

Conversion involves a radical reorientation of belief.

For Saul, it meant accepting that the crucified one was now the risen Lord.

That salvation comes not through Torah keeping.

Not through all those laws,

but through Christ's atoning substitutionary death on the cross.

That God's promises are fulfilled.

Everything he had read in the Torah,

in the Old Testament scriptures,

that he had heard from a child growing up,

everything is fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth,

the Christ, the Son of God.

Instead of blasphemy in Jesus,

Saul saw glory.

Instead of deception,

he saw truth.

Instead of a curse,

he saw redemption.

Theologian Alistair McGrath puts it like this.

He explains it.

Christianity holds that the life,

death,

and resurrection of Jesus Christ

have changed things.

The created order,

and above all,

humanity has fallen into disorder.

Things are not what they're meant to be,

and something has to be done about this.

The same God who made the created order,

therefore acts to renew it,

and reorder it.

The Christian doctrine of sin

gives an account of what went wrong.

The doctrine of salvation

deals with the restoration of the created order,

and humanity to its proper relationship with God.

This is what Paul,

Saul of Tarsus,

now believed.

Everything had changed for him.

Becoming a Christian was a radical reversal.

For Saul,

it changed his beliefs.

Jesus had become front and center in his life.

Paul could later write,

for me to live is Christ.

For me to live is Christ.

Jesus Christ was central.

It consumed Saul of Tarsus.

It consumed Paul the Apostle,

and he should.

He, the Lord Jesus,

should consume our thoughts,

our passions,

our lives.

So it changed Saul's beliefs.

It also changed his belonging,

transformed his belonging.

Previously, Saul had belonged

to the inner circle

of the Jewish religious authorities.

He had a mandate from the high priest.

His mission to Damascus

was to persecute the Christians.

He was an enforcer of Jewish orthodoxy.

But after his conversion,

Saul's allegiance changed.

It shifted completely.

Before he was raising havoc

among the Christians,

now he was one of them.

Now he was preaching boldly

that Jesus was the Messiah.

He even called him Lord.

What a reversal.

What a change.

In the various letters

that Saul,

Paul,

Paul the Apostle,

wrote

that we have in our New Testament,

over a period of about 20 years,

he repeatedly emphasizes

this new allegiance.

Firstly,

Christians belong to Christ.

He is Lord

and Master

of our lives.

And then,

maybe somewhat surprisingly,

Christians also belong

to one another,

to the community of saints

expressed locally

in an individual church.

Paul describes it like this

in Romans 12,

Romans 12:5

verse 5.

In Christ,

we though many

form one body

and each member

belongs to all the others.

Let that sink in.

Each member

belongs to all the others.

That's church.

That's what it's all about.

Christians don't just associate

with one another.

They organically make up

the body of Christ.

As Christians,

we're interconnected

with one another.

We're responsible

for one another.

We love one another.

It's a mutual belonging.

It's a communal existence.

At first,

as we already know,

the Christians in Jerusalem

were skeptical about him,

but Paul,

Saul,

was invited

into that circle

of Christians

in Jerusalem.

And we think

that he stayed there

at this time

for just two weeks.

But he identifies openly

as a disciple of Jesus,

as a follower of Christ.

He preached about him.

He got into big trouble for it.

They wanted to kill him.

His belonging

had entirely changed.

The last time

he was in Jerusalem,

he was with the high priest,

with the Jewish authorities.

Now,

he's with

kind of the underground church.

church.

But he wasn't keeping

his head down.

He was preaching boldly.

And so,

he,

the persecutor,

became the persecuted

in Jerusalem.

This new belonging

came at a cost

to Saul.

The Hellenistic Jews

wanted him dead.

And so,

he quickly left

for Caesarea

and then on to Tarsus.

As we think

about belonging,

remember that

belonging

to a church

is not the same

as belonging

to a club.

I've got friends

who are members

of golf clubs

or they play bridge

with a group

of acquaintances

or they're part

of a running

or a hiking group

or a theatrical society

or a book club,

whatever.

And they think

that I belong

to a church

in the same way.

It's just a group

of like-minded people

and I spend some time

with them

on a Sunday morning.

So,

that's church.

It's like a club.

That's what my friends,

my non-Christian friends,

think.

But that's not

what this belonging

is about at all.

Here,

it's far more

like a family

who love one another,

who care deeply

for one another,

who carry one another's

burdens,

who share their lives

together,

who show hospitality,

who make loving sacrifices

for each other,

whose lives are

embedded together.

That's church.

Paul explains this

belonging in one

of his letters

in 1 Corinthians.

He says,

you are the body

of Christ

and each one of you

is a part of it.

If one part suffers,

every part suffers

with it.

If one part is honored,

every part rejoices

with it.

We rejoice

with those who rejoice.

We mourn

with those who mourn.

That's what community

feels like.

Belonging to Christ

means belonging

to his people.

Christianity

was never designed

to be lived

in isolation.

There's no such thing

as a lone ranger

Christian.

It requires

commitment,

vulnerability,

shared life,

mutual care.

that's why church

membership is so important.

It shows that you

have intentionally

attached yourself.

You belong

to this group

of people

who also belong

to Christ.

It's why doing church

on your own

at home,

online,

doesn't really work.

It's not it.

Church was meant

to be

communal,

together.

together.

We need to invest

our lives

in each other.

In France now,

Florence,

my wife,

and I host

a community group

in our home.

Actually,

I joke that they

really only come

because Florence

is such a good cook

and she prepares

the meal for them.

But it's mostly

made up of young people,

a little bit like

jars of clay

when we were here

and part of that

community group

in this church.

And the young people

in the 20s and 30s,

and we know them,

we've got to know them

and love them.

We share meals together,

but we also share

our lives together.

We know about

the struggle

some of them have

as foreigners

to get the right visa

to live and work

in France.

We know about

how disappointed

they are with

the state-appointed

lawyers who mess

up their cases.

We know about

the difficulties

of being a schoolteacher

where you might be

threatened in the classroom

verbally or even

physically by a teenager.

We know about

the financial worries

of some of these

young people,

the complicated families

that some of them

come from,

their financial troubles

that they can barely

afford good

and proper food.

We know about

setbacks in finding jobs,

about relationship,

heartbreaks.

We know about

health issues

and other everyday matters.

But there are

meals together.

We pray for one another.

together.

There's helping out

financially.

There's hospitality.

There's meeting up

for coffee or lunch

together.

There's going to

football matches

together.

There's going for

bike rides together.

There's attending

graduations and

attending baptisms.

Why any of this?

Why would we bother?

Why do we do this?

Because when you're

a Christian,

each member belongs

to each other.

We belong to

all the others.

There's a responsibility

that we have

to one another.

Being a Christian

involves changing

a person's belonging.

But it also

might mean adversity.

It's not a free ride.

Belonging to the

community of saints

might cause suffering

at the hands of others.

Maybe family,

maybe friends,

maybe colleagues

treated badly

because of your faith.

Saul's new identity

led to hardship

and rejection,

danger.

Belonging doesn't

guarantee ease,

but it does guarantee

a shared life

with the community

of saints

and with others

who are participating

in God's family.

So we've looked

at believing,

we've looked at belonging,

how these are changed,

and the third one,

the third change

is behavior.

It shapes

becoming a Christian,

being a Christian,

shapes,

reshapes

our beliefs

our belonging

and our behavior.

A few years ago

in Hong Kong,

I was talking

with someone

when we realized

that we had

a mutual friend.

The other person

asked me how I knew

this friend

and I said,

oh, it's because

we go to the same church.

And at that point,

the reaction

of the person

that I was talking to

was disheartening.

She said,

oh, I didn't think

from his language

he'd be the kind of guy

that went to church.

I found that sad.

Sad because

the Christian faith

is not just

merely intellectual

assent.

It's a lived

transformation.

My behavior,

my lifestyle,

my language,

my attitudes,

my reactions

are supposed

to reflect

that I belong

to Jesus.

Paul wrote,

follow my example

as I follow

the example

of Christ.

Christ.

The Christian life

is one of imitation.

We imitate

Christ.

We reflect

Christ's character

in our daily

conduct.

When your friends

and your colleagues

and your family

look at you,

do they see

Jesus?

Or would they say,

they don't look

like the kind of

person that would

go to church.

Who do they see

when they see you?

In Acts 4,

Acts 4:13

verse 13,

observers noted

that Peter

and John,

that they had

been with Jesus.

Would people

say that about me?

About you?

They've been

with Jesus.

Previously,

Saul had been

a violent

persecutor

of Christians.

Three years

later,

in Jerusalem,

he returns

as a bold

preacher of Christ.

His speech

had changed.

His goals

had changed.

His relationships

had changed.

His identity

had changed.

He had changed

from the inside out.

He was fully

committed to Christ,

believing that

the whole

universe

revolved

around

Jesus of

Nazareth,

Christ,

the Son

of the

living God.

Earlier,

Paul had thought

that Christ

was a

heretic,

if you like,

that he was

a fraud.

And now he

believes

everything is

centered in

Jesus.

He said,

in Christ

lives all

the fullness

of God,

and Christ

is all that

matters and

lives in each

one of us.

What a change.

Christ is front

and center.

Christ is

everything now

for Paul.

I live

for him.

You know,

there's

possibly,

probably,

I don't know

which,

maybe,

my favorite

verse in

the Bible.

I have been

crucified with

Christ and I

no longer

live,

but Christ

lives in

me.

And the

life I

now live

in the

flesh,

in the

body,

I live

by faith

in the

Son of

God,

who loved

me and

gave

himself

for me.

Christ

is

everything.

Christ

is in

us.

He is

in everything.

He is

all and

in all.

He is

the focus.

He,

all the

fullness

of God

resides

in

Jesus

Christ.

Do I

believe in

a crucified

God?

Absolutely.

It might

be mad,

it may be

a joke,

some people

might think

it's

blasphemous,

but my

God was

crucified.

And I

believe in

him.

And I

want to

tell others

about him.

And he's

alive today.

He might

have been

dead once,

but he

is alive

forevermore.

Christ

is all

and in

all.

And so

Saul

identified

with Christ

and he

wanted to

live a

life that

pleased

him.

Our

behavior

matters

because we

belong to

Jesus.

How we

speak,

how we

treat

others,

how we

respond under

pressure,

it all

reflects our

allegiance.

Let me

explain it

like this.

My wife

Florence

probably

won't

really like

this

illustration,

but it's

true.

You know,

you see

this kind

of outside

Henry Craig,

but my

wife and

others see

someone who

doesn't suffer

fools gladly.

I can be

abrupt with

people.

I can ignore

them.

I don't even

see them at

times,

but I have

learned from

my wife

learned from

her example

because Florence

speaks to

people in

a kind

way.

She

acknowledges

people I

don't even

see,

taxi drivers,

cashiers,

concierges,

delivery men,

shop assistants,

and she

doesn't mutter

under her

breath like

I do when

other people

do silly

things in

front of

her.

And the

reason she

gives for

her behavior

is always

the same

one.

I want

to be a

good witness.

I want

to be a

good witness

to my

faith in

Jesus Christ.

I want

to testify

to who

he is,

and I

want to

reflect the

character of

Christ and

how I

behave.

A good

witness to

the fact

that Christ

reshapes

your life.

And so

sometimes I

do suffer

fools gladly.

Sometimes my

behavior has

changed.

Why?

Because I

also want

to reflect

Christ and

I want to

be reshaped

by him in

my behavior.

Conversion and

transformation are

not about

perfection, but

they do amount

to a direction,

a trajectory

of your life,

a movement

toward becoming

like Christ.

Let's wrap

this up.

Saul's

conversion was

unique.

It was

dramatic.

We don't

all become

Christians the

way Saul of

Tarsus did.

But the

reshaping that

followed his

life should

be a model

for each one

of us as

believers.

Saul's life

tells us what

it ought to

look like as

a Christian in

the period after

we become

Christians.

Three

essentials.

New

beliefs,

trusting in

the crucified

and risen

Christ.

New

belonging,

identifying with

Christ and

with his

people.

new behavior,

living in a

way that

reflects and

honors Jesus.

You see,

many people call

themselves Christians

because they

accept certain

truths.

They say they

believe in

Jesus.

They know he

died for their

sins.

Yet their

everyday lives

tell another

story.

Christ hardly

makes any

difference in

their choices

or their

priorities or

their desires.

their faith

lives largely

in the mind

and not in

the heart.

It's

understood but

not embraced.

They live as

practical atheists

and call

themselves

Christians.

Others

faithfully attend

church.

They might even

readily identify

with some

Christian

denomination.

They belong

outwardly.

Yet beneath

the surface

there's no

personal trust

in God,

no quiet

assurance that

their sins

are forgiven.

No vibrant

fellowship daily

with Jesus.

They may belong

socially but

they still don't

have a believing

connection.

No deep

relationship with

God or with

his people.

So they don't

really believe

or behave.

They just

belong.

The first group

that I mentioned

just now,

they believe but

they don't really

belong or behave.

And then still

others live

upright,

respectable lives.

They're good

people.

They're kind,

responsible,

decent,

but they're

self-centered

and self-reliant.

They look to

their own

goodness for

their salvation.

They're their

own savior.

I'm a good

person.

I don't need

church.

I don't need

anyone else,

they say.

They behave

well but they

don't really

belong and

they don't

really have a

saving faith in

Jesus so they

don't really

believe.

You see,

to be a

Christian involves

all three.

Believing

and belonging

and behaving.

So here's the

question today.

What has

changed in my

life because I

follow Jesus?

What do I

truly believe?

Not just in

theory but in

the deepest part

of my being.

What would I

stake my

belief,

my life on?

What would I

be prepared to

die for?

I say that I'm

a Christian but

do I really

belong?

Do I live as

though I'm the

center of my

own world?

Do I love

fellow believers

in a tangible

costly way?

Is my life

intertwined with

theirs?

And then my

behavior, does it

reflect that I'm

a follower of

Jesus?

Am I seeking to

please him

occasionally or

always?

Do my

beliefs, my

belonging, my

behavior align?

Do they point to

the clear

conclusion that I

have been with

Jesus?

Conversion to

Christianity is a

fresh start.

It's a new

beginning that

continues to

transform our

beliefs, our

belonging, and

our behavior.

Christians are

those people whose

lives are being

reshaped by

Christ.

It's mine.

It's my life being

reshaped by

Christ.

It's yours.

Let's pray.

Lord, may the

words of my

mouth, our

mouths, and the

meditation of our

hearts be pleasing

in your sight,

O God.

And may we

ensure as we

examine our lives

that we believe

that we belong

and that we

behave in a

way that

shows the

image of Christ

in our lives.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.