Signs of Conversion to Christ

Yes, yes, yes, we are still in the book of the Acts of the Apostles At this time.

Any children here ages 3 to 6 are welcome to be dismissed and go down for our children's church downstairs with the teacher, who will be out there to meet you.

You can get up and go right now if you want.

In the meantime, we're going to continue our sermon series, and if you didn't get a sermon outline and would like one, our ushers would be happy to give you one right now.

Just raise your hand and they will be able to give you one.

Or if you want to borrow a Bible too, I think they have those available.

As you know by now, the book of Acts is about earliest Christianity, where it all began, and it unfolds a story of how the church grew through conversions to Christ.

We've been looking at conversions and specifically the last couple of times, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, one of the most well-known conversions in the Bible.

He became known as the Apostle Paul, who wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament.

Saul of Tarsus, who repudiated Christianity, ravaged the early church with murderous threats, was converted to become one of the most committed followers of Jesus and promoter of the church and Christianity.

So we've been looking at how did that happen?

That's quite amazing, quite miraculous.

So today we're going to look at his conversion, again briefly, and then what I want to do is look at the signs and results of his conversion.

Luke records a number of conversions in the Bible, in the book of Acts actually, that we'll be looking at, and these conversion stories.

I love them because they're all different, they're very diverse, but we learn something from all of them.

We started with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts, chapter 8, saw his conversion.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Now we're looking at Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9.

Then we'll look at the Roman centurion's conversion in Acts, chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Then we'll look at Lydia's conversion, who was a Jewish businesswoman, in Acts 16.

And then, finally, we'll look at the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, who was also converted, except for Saul of Tarsus, most of the conversion stories that we're going to see in the book of Acts have no lights, no sounds, no miracles, just the Bible and the witnesses testifying about Jesus.

We've been focusing mainly on the people who are being converted, but we need to keep in mind and we've seen it, but we'll continue to see it that God is always the one at work behind all of these scenes to bring people to a point where they understand and bring and believe the gospel.

While the conversion stories are all different in many ways, they share some common elements and that's what I've been trying to focus on.

As we go through this, you'll see them.

Luke helps us see what these elements are because Paul's conversion he basically slows it way down, so we can kind of pick out these elements of what's happening to bring this adamant, militant person against Christianity come to faith in Jesus.

The elements are pretty much the same for every conversion to Christ and, if you remember as we talked about it first, there's always some sort of collision, if you will, with the truth about who Jesus really is and what he's done.

Let me just read this first part in Acts, chapter 9, again verses 1 to 6.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he was traveling, it happened that as he was approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

He fell to the ground, heard a voice saying to him Saul, saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said who are you, lord?

He said I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But get up, enter the city, it'll be told to you what you must do.

Get up, enter the city, it'll be told to you what you must do.

Sometimes, as he did with Saul, god may use some painful circumstances in our life that Paul recognized as goads, these prods, to move him closer to what God wants him to learn and to know, move him closer to what God wants him to learn and to know.

For Saul, it was a literal collision of sorts when the Lord appeared to him in this bright, shining light and spoke to him and knocked him to the ground.

For others, this collision colliding with the truth of Jesus may involve a problem we can't solve.

We're looking for answers.

Maybe it's a need we can't solve.

We're looking for answers.

Maybe it's a need we can't meet and can't fulfill it.

There's something in every conversion, a humbling sense of when we become willing to listen, we become vulnerable and open to listen to the truth about Jesus.

Some conversions happen right away.

Boom yeah, got it.

They could see the truth about Jesus and they bow and believe in him and are saved.

Some conversions, though, don't happen right away, like the conversion story of a woman I know, whose name is Becky, not her real name.

I'm protecting the innocent.

She was a quiet, unassuming young lady who was not a Christian and made a point of saying that, and, on a lark, she started attending West Suburban Community Church a number of years ago.

She came to the worship service, sat quietly in the back, she attended fellowships.

We had meals, events, and was even helping at some of those events.

She did that for about a year and I really think she was looking for authentic Christianity.

But she was looking for authentic Christianity.

But she was welcomed here and she served here and she enjoyed the fellowship and the worship.

Then, one day, after about a year, she made an appointment to talk to me.

She had lots of questions about Jesus and the Bible and how to explain us.

I spent a couple of hours in my office with her, answering her questions and carefully explaining the gospel of Jesus, and at the end of our conversation I asked her if she understood the gospel.

She said yes, I do, and I asked her if she wanted to pray with me and receive Jesus as her Savior, and this somewhat surprised me.

But she said no, she wanted to go home and think about it.

Okay, but before she left.

I well, I'll come to that in a minute Becky's collision with the truth of Jesus.

She needed time to think about it and that's exactly what happened to Saul of Tarsus, leading us to the second element of conversion, what we'll call darkness.

Acts 9, verses 8 and 9,.

Acts 9:8

Saul got up from the ground.

Though his eyes were open, he couldn't see anything Leading him by the hand.

They brought him into Damascus and he was three days without sight, neither ate nor drank.

Saul needed time to think.

This was huge.

He had to process this.

He was adamantly opposed to anything related to this person named Jesus or Christianity, and now you can't believe it.

So he was blinded in darkness for three days, the same amount of time.

Interesting that Jesus was in darkness before he rose from the dead.

And in the darkness, saul had time to think about his spiritual condition, not just his physical condition, like Saul.

This is the point where we begin to realize we're wrong about God or we're wrong about Jesus, about our own life.

And during this time, like Saul, we begin to perhaps experience a real conviction of sin in our life, that we have fallen short of God, that we're unworthy and that's what God loves to do in this time of darkness that we may go through, and we begin to see that all our righteous efforts in order to feel good or have answered this question or be fulfilled in this way are empty, empty.

They aren't enough to fill our deepest need.

Like Saul, my friend Becky needed time to consider Jesus and her spiritual condition.

She understood the gospel Before she left that day.

I asked her now at some point, if you wanted to become a Christian, do you know what you would do?

And she said, yes, I do.

And I had her tell me what would you do.

She explained it and she went home and later that night she got on her knees, bowed her head and prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart.

She couldn't wait to tell me.

The next day I baptized her here.

She became a vibrant, joyful Christian serving the Lord here, with a new smile and just a wonderful, wonderful transformation.

She was converted.

That brings us to the last element of conversion At some point.

Everybody has to believe in Jesus, have faith in Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior in order to be born again.

So in Acts 9, as we follow Saul, we see indications that this happened with him in Acts 9, 17 to 19.

Ananias departed and entered the house.

After laying his hands on him he said Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you are coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's conversion.

And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales and he regained his sight.

He got up and he was baptized Sign of conversion.

And he took food and was strengthened and for several days he was with the disciples.

He wasn't trying to kill them anymore, he was with them.

We realize when we come to faith in Jesus we can't save ourselves, we're not good enough, we fall way short.

And the gospel becomes very clear.

We grasp it.

Jesus is the one who died for our sins, rose again to give us eternal life.

When we believe in him.

And then we come to a point where we do, we get it, we understand it, we put our trust and faith in Jesus to save us.

Saul was blind, but now he can really see.

I love that picture, that amazing grace.

I was blind, but now I see Most of us can tell that story.

I can.

And then he was baptized.

While every conversion story is unique I believe Luke puts this here Saul's conversion is a kind of paradigm for all conversions.

But this is the question for today how do we know that we've really been converted?

And so Luke helps us see, I think, four signs of conversion.

The first sign we see here is we experience a new intimacy with God.

Look at what Saul did after he got knocked down and saw and heard the resurrected Jesus and was blinded for three days Acts 9, 10 to 12.

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias.

The Lord said to him in a vision, in a vision Now this is.

He's let Saul stay in the darkness three days.

He's thinking.

And Ananias said here, I am Lord.

And the Lord said to him I want you to get up, go to the street called Straight, inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, because he is praying.

Hmm, there you go, and he's seen a vision of a man named Ananias.

Come and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

Now God told Ananias, the disciple of Jesus, while he's in Damascus, go to the straight street because Saul was praying.

Now Saul was a Pharisee, he prayed a lot.

Why was this so different and significant?

I believe his prayer is different here.

It's one thing, you see, to say your prayers.

It's quite another thing to actually talk to God.

He wasn't saying prayers, he was talking to God, a sign that your relationship to him has changed.

It's become more intimate.

See, when you're converted, you go from calling on God, on a God you don't know, who seems remote, to calling on a God you do know, who now seems very close.

That's part of conversion.

You have a new intimacy with God.

So let me ask when you pray, are you just saying prayers?

Do you keep it formal and impersonal?

Oh God, thou almighty, who are in heaven?

Or when you pray, is it obvious you're speaking to someone you know?

Oh heavenly father, something in Paul's, when Paul started praying changed and God said get over there, he's praying, he gets it, he has my spirit.

Now he'll have my spirit.

Speaking to God as your powerful boss is different than speaking to God.

Who is your loving father, his adopted son or daughter, different, very different.

Paul later recognizes in the book of Romans that our intimacy with God in prayer is a sign we've been converted and have the Holy Spirit.

Now Romans 8, 15 and 16 says to these Roman believers you've not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again.

You've received a spirit of adoption by which we cry out Abba, father, daddy.

A new intimacy.

The Spirit himself in us testifies.

With our spirit we're children of God.

New relationship, new intimacy, and it's seen in how we pray.

That brings us to the second sign of conversion, which is a new understanding of the Bible, which is almost in every conversion.

Something happens.

When the Holy Spirit enters us, he opens our minds to start to understand this actually for the first time, and when Paul's thinking it starts to make sense.

God opens the eyes of his heart to see God's plan for Jesus and redemption in the Bible.

We know that's the case because we know somebody.

The Holy Spirit turned the light on in Paul's heart because he began to understand things he later would write about, things like the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, that he took the wrath of God for our sins.

He began to understand that salvation was by God's grace, through faith in the Messiah, not through his ability to keep the law.

He wrote about this stuff, his new understanding of the scriptures transformed.

A sign of conversion is that the Holy Spirit opens your mind to understand the Bible, maybe for the first time.

This is what happened to the first disciples when they believed in Jesus.

He rose from the dead.

They began to see Jesus in the scripture.

This is what Jesus said to them after his resurrection in Luke, chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

He said these are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

It's a spiritual gift.

The Holy Spirit in us opens our minds.

We get it, we see it, we see the connections and we keep learning.

As time goes on, he shows us more and more and more and more.

It's one of the most dramatic things I remember.

After believing in Jesus and being converted, I'd open the Bible and say, oh, wow, that's amazing, it's like I get it and that understanding, that new understanding, is almost always accompanied by a desire to get in this and look at stuff.

Wow, I never saw that before.

Do you have a desire?

Are you converted?

That's the work of the Spirit, not you.

Luke 24, verse 32,.

Luke 24:32

After Jesus spoke to these disciples about his word, he met the two in the road to Emmaus.

They had a little lunch with him and then he left.

And they said to one another after he left were not our hearts burning, burning within us as he was speaking to us, explaining the scriptures to us?

Do you have a passion for God's word?

It's a sign of conversion.

I consume this thing.

1 Peter.

It's absolutely essential.

Maybe you have been converted, but this is laying on a shelf somewhere.

Well, you're not going to grow.

You'll remain the same Christian age infant you were when you first started, until you start feeding yourself.

1 Peter, 2, 2 and 3.

Peter encourages believers here get in God's word Like newborn babies, long for it, long for the pure spiritual milk of the word, so that you may grow in relation to your salvation.

If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, if truly the Holy Spirit's in you, you've tasted him, he's opened your mind to get it.

There's nothing.

It's this sitting down to a full course meal filling up with just manna from heaven.

But I don't want you to miss the connection here.

When Saul started praying, talking to God in a new intimacy, do you realize?

That's when God arranged for his healing.

Go, ananias.

He's really praying.

Now it's time to heal him.

Don't miss that power of prayer.

We've talked about it, dennis, this morning.

He sent Ananias, though, not just for his healing, but for the third sign of conversion, to help him understand he now belongs to a new community in Christ.

Help him understand he now belongs to a new community in Christ.

He's now part of a fellowship with other Christians, a community of believers.

Acts 9, 17 and 19.

Again, ananias departed, entered the house laying his hands on him and said listen, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, sent me to you so that you may regain your sight and you could be filled with the Spirit.

And then, immediately, there fell from his eyes something like scales.

He regained his sight, he got up and was baptized, took food, strengthened, and he was with the disciples who were at Damascus.

Ananias was sent to Saul by God, god's emissary, his ambassador, his messenger, to heal him and fill him with the Holy Spirit.

Let me ask you has anybody ever laid hands on you and prayed for you?

It's not magic, it's an expression of love.

God wants you to sense his love and acceptance in the spirit.

You know, ananias wasn't stupid.

He knows who Saul is and at first, when we read it, he was reluctant to go visit him.

He said, lord, don't you realize this guy is killing us?

Saul had a warrant for Ananias' arrest.

Saul had the legal authority to put him in prison and have him killed.

Ananias was scared, but Ananias was a Christian and he knew the power of the gospel.

And he knew the power of the gospel.

Sometime in the darkness, saul was converted, believed in Jesus, the Messiah, and truly amazing thing here is that Ananias called Saul brother and he baptized him as a brand new Christian.

You see, when we believe in Jesus, we become part of a new family, a new family.

This is family.

Paul would later call it the household of God.

A sign of conversion is recognizing that you are part of this family.

You weren't before and you desire to meet with them.

That's a sign of conversion to be with them.

Saul was.

You don't want to miss this.

Saul was dramatically, dramatically introduced to this radical new relationship with Jesus and his body, the church, when he collided with him on the road to Damascus.

Let me walk you through this, because this, to me, is one of the most amazing things of this passage, so I didn't want to leave it too soon.

Knocked him off.

Jesus knocked him down and Jesus said in verse 4, 9-4, saul, saul, why are you persecuting me?

Saul said in 9-5, who are you Lord?

Jesus answered verse 6, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

This is the bombshell of the whole passage.

Folks, you get this and you got a lot of Christianity.

Okay, because it looks like a mistake.

Shouldn't he have said why are you persecuting them?

But he said it twice why are you persecuting me?

Don't miss this.

Saul's probably thinking I'm not persecuting you, I don't even know you.

Who are you?

What are you talking about?

Jesus said I am Jesus, you are persecuting.

That astounding statement seared itself in Paul's mind and heart, the center of Paul's consciousness never, ever to leave him.

When Jesus said that Paul spent the rest of his life working out what that means, don't miss this.

And the more and more he worked it out, it converted him more and more and more.

Wow, jesus is saying that he has such an intimate, radical union and solidarity with the people who believed in him that whatever happens to them happens to him.

In reality, he has a relationship so close with those who believe in him that what's true of them is true of him, what's true of Jesus is true of them.

They are in me and I am in them.

Sound familiar, jesus said I'm not just their example, I am in union with them Organically, spiritually, organically.

We're the same.

And the first thing Paul ever heard from Jesus became the theme of everything he wrote about Christ.

We are in Christ, ephesians 1, 3-4.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blessed before him.

The book of Ephesians alone, Paul repeats that phrase in Christ 13 times, 15 times in the book of Romans, 70 times in the rest of Paul's writings.

He couldn't get over it.

You mean, when I hurt you, when I hurt them, I'm hurting you.

Yes, you are.

Don't do that.

Now.

What does that say about us and how we treat one another?

You see, that's the body of Christ, the family of God.

It means to be in union with Christ.

When we believe in him, he puts his Holy Spirit in us and we're joined forever, so that when we believe in him, when Jesus died for our sins, we died with him.

When you believe in Jesus, god treats you as if you died for your sins, when Jesus did that for you, when Jesus was raised to a high place of honor for his obedience unto death.

When we believe in Jesus, god treats you as if you had accomplished everything he did.

How could that be, I don't know.

God's amazing grace and love, that's how, wow.

The final sign of a converted life is living a converted life.

Obviously, listen to the Apostle Paul.

He writes about his conversion, summarizing the impact it had on his life, in Galatians 2.20.

You know what I've been crucified with Christ?

That was me had in his life.

In Galatians 2.20.

You know what I've been crucified with Christ?

That was me.

He and I are in union.

It's no longer I who live now, but Christ living in me and the life I live now in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's my life.

He says he lives his life by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him.

Did you see?

Paul doesn't have a negative view of the Christian life at all that he had.

God hasn't taken away the things he wants to do.

God has given him the one thing in the universe worth living for Jesus.

Saul was joyously converted, lived the rest of his life for Jesus, living a converted life, living by faith in the one who has gone to such lengths for us.

Paul says that means you know what.

I'm going to go to great lengths to love him as best I can, living a converted life.

He says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5.15,.

And he died for all, referring to Jesus so that they who live his life is in them, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves but for him, who died and rose again on their behalf.

Jesus in us, we in Jesus.

What would that look like if we really grasped that, even in our own body?

Saul of Tarsus demonstrates that if the power of God can convert someone like him, who is absolutely dead set against anything to do with Christianity, the gospel can convert anybody, anybody.

Saul of Tarsus Luke helps us understand has shown us four significant signs of conversion.

We go from praying prayers to praying to our Heavenly Father, we begin to long for the Scripture.

The Word of God is our food.

We begin to desire to be with the family of God and we begin to live a converted life out of love for Jesus, being in union with Him, because that's what he would do.

How he would treat you is how I need to treat you.

It's true, jesus even taught that.

But Jesus also said something else, remember.

He said if we want to be in the kingdom of God, it's a reference to heaven.

If we want to be in the kingdom of God, it's a reference to heaven.

We need to be converted.

Our natural state will not get us there.

He said, matthew 18,.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, called a child to himself, set him before them, said truly, truly, I say to you, unless you are converted, become the disciples, unless you guys are converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's profound.

So again, are you converted?

Are there any significant signs in your life that your relationship with God has changed, that your desire for the Word has changed, that you want to be with the church, the family of God, that you begin to see the changes God has made in your life, point blank.

We are converted when we believe in Jesus.

The Son of God is our Savior, and he then gives us his Holy Spirit, the transforming power of his presence in us.

If you have never been converted, or not sure, then this would be a great time.

As I close this prayer, just cry out to God.

Lord, I've been in darkness.

I believe Jesus is the Son of God, who died for my sins and rose again, and I want to welcome him into my life, believe in him as my Savior.

Would you do that?

Let's pray, father, thank you that you have allowed us to come to know you through faith in Jesus and that there's nothing you tell us that can separate us from his love.

Help those, lord, who may be here, and our friends and neighbors who do not know you yet, to grasp and believe the literally marvelous news of the gospel.

When we believe in Jesus, we become united with him forever.

Help us who are converted to Jesus Christ to live converted lives, and that testifies to the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ in the gospel.

I pray this Lord with all my heart, in Jesus' name, amen.