Conversion 101

And let me invite you to turn once again to Galatians 1.

And this will be our last week in Galatians 1 as we do our study through.

Now, as we go, this will become a little bit more evident as we go through.

It was more evident in the first couple of weeks, that there is a problem in Galatia, in the city, in the region.

There were false teachers that were coming in and teaching that yes, we're saved by Jesus, but along with our works.

It's yes, you have to believe in Jesus.

Of course you have to believe in Jesus, but you're also saved by Jesus plus the works that you do.

And for some of us, we that's confusing for us because we know works fits into that somehow.

So the question that Paul is dealing with as we go through Galatians is does God love us apart from what we do?

Or does God love us conditioned upon what we do?

See the difference between that?

Does God love us apart from what we do, but we live out of that love?

Or does God love us conditioned by, along with, because of what we do?

And not everybody understands that.

I love listening to testimonies.

I love getting people's stories about how they came to faith in Jesus.

And so often if I'm sitting down with somebody, I'll ask them that question.

Years ago, I was sitting with a college student, and I asked him, I said, tell me the story about how you came to faith in Jesus.

And he said, Well, he said, you know, as I I just kind of got to this point where I realized I needed to clean up my act.

There were things I needed to be doing that I wasn't doing.

There were things that I needed to bring into my life that weren't brought into my life, and I really needed to kind of get cleaned up.

And so I decided I needed to follow Jesus.

And I recognize at this point, he doesn't really understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because in his mind, it becoming a Christian means it's about morality.

It is about the things that I do for God.

But when you really understand the gospel of Jesus, you understand, no, it's not first and foremost about what I do for God.

That's a response.

It's a response to the great love that He's shown me in Jesus and what Jesus has done for me.

And it's a beautiful moment when you see somebody come to that recognition of how deep and wonderful the love of God really is.

So my wife Rebecca, uh, she uh she's on Instagram still.

I'm not on Instagram anymore.

And uh she came, she said, you've got to listen to this uh testimony.

And so there's a lady and she's been making the rounds.

I actually Googled the person, and her name is Kylie.

And Kylie was uh, she talks about, she described herself as an ex-Mormon Christian.

Now, what's fascinating about that is she says this in her online explanation of what happened to her.

She said, most people actually think that Mormonism is a Christian denomination.

It's not, it is a different religion.

And so they don't just use the Bible, but they use the Bible plus the Book of Mormon.

And they don't just use the Bible, they actually have changed parts of the Bible to fit with the Book of Mormon.

And they use a lot of the same language that Christians use, but they give the words very different meanings.

So it's something very, it's not a it's not like Baptist, Episcopal, Anglican, Presbyterian Mormon.

It's Mormon is a different religion.

But she grew up her whole life in the Mormon church.

She was born into the Mormon church.

She was baptized, I think, around age eight in the Mormon church.

Uh, 25, her first 25 years of life, she was in the Mormon church.

She got married to a man who was a Christian, and she would take her daughter to the Mormon church, and he would take the daughter to uh the Christian church.

They just did life independently, and she wasn't budging, and he wasn't budging, and uh they should have had better premarital counseling, maybe.

I don't know.

And uh and so there came this point where her oldest daughter was making a friend at school, and they decided to have a play date with her and her mother.

Now, the mother, too, of this of the friend, she was an ex-Mormon.

And so they got together, and Kylie was saying she was curious about what was gonna be said at this particular meeting because uh, you know, she was thinking, I'm not, I'm not gonna become a Christian, but I'm curious, how does she justify leaving the true Mormon church?

And so she went in with this idea of like, this is gonna be an interesting conversation.

Well, as they were talking, this the friend's mother started talking about the Mormon church.

And, you know, I'm not gonna go into the details of what happened, but as she was talking about leaving the Mormon church and why she left the Mormon church and what the gospel of Jesus is, this is what Kylie said.

She said, as she raised questions about the Book of Mormon, particularly, Kylie said, it's like the lights flipped on and an immediate paradigm shift happened instantaneously in her heart.

She saw Mormonism for what it was, and she saw the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And all of a sudden, she said, I just gathered my kids from the park and we got in the car because my world was falling apart.

This thing that I had believed for 25 years, I was finding out this isn't true.

And so she went home, she and uh she called her husband immediately, and she started just gushing, telling him everything that uh about the conversation.

And then she finally told him, the Mormon church isn't true.

And then she fell on her knees in tears, and she said, So you know, she she lost this part, but then this is what she said.

At the same time, this burden had lifted off my shoulders.

I felt free, and all I could think was Jesus.

And this is what she said.

She said, Jesus lived the perfect life people could not live, and he died the death that they deserve, and he offers salvation to whoever trusts him in his work on the cross.

And she said, We are clothed in his righteousness.

And I thought, she got it.

She understands the gospel, she's a sister in Christ.

Now, what happened to her?

Something we would call conversion.

Uh, is it possible that you could become converted?

I mean, what do we mean even when we talk about conversion?

And the reason I'm bringing that up is the passage that we're talking about this morning is perhaps the most famous story of conversion in the history of the church.

And it is the conversion story of the apostle Paul.

So, if you're able, let me invite you to stand.

As we read Galatians chapter 1, starting with verse 11.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days, but I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.

And what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie.

Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches in Judea that are in Christ.

They only were hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy, and they glorified God because of me.

Could it be possible that this gospel is true and wonderful and transformative?

We believe it is.

We believe it changes lives.

And we ask Lord Jesus as we talk this morning about this question to the heart of Galatians, that it would not be rules that would transform us and shackle us, but it would be Christ and His freedom and his grace that releases us to live lives of fullness and joy before you in this world.

Would you bless us and would you bless our time in this passage?

And would you bless me?

I'm handling holy things and holding things that are precious.

And I pray that you would help me not to fumble them.

Bless us and be with us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please have a seat.

So the big question at the heart of Galatians is this Does God love us apart from what we do, or does God love us upon the condition of what we do?

And what Paul is saying throughout the whole book, uh, giving us an example here, is God loves us apart from anything that we do.

It is all by grace.

But it does make sense to us, doesn't it?

It does make sense to us that we would have to do something because we have wronged him in some way, and when somebody wrongs us, we expect somehow to have to make it up to them.

But the gospel says, no, you could never earn your way back.

So Jesus took the penalty for our sins on the cross, and that's the testimony of the Bible.

And when you realize God is that forgiving, he is that loving, he is that gracious, that that then doesn't make you want to do more to try to woo him back to you, you realize I don't have to do anything to woo him back to me.

He's wooing me back and showing me his grace, and he's showing me his love so that he would be first place in my life again.

So we're gonna dig in a little bit in this.

So in salvation, the Bible says, first and foremost, this is the part we talk about a lot.

I love talking about this.

God does something for us, he saves us apart from anything we do, and we see this in the work of Jesus Christ.

He removed from us all that would disqualify us from entering into the presence of God.

So Jesus took all of our sins in his body on the tree and died for our sins to pay the penalty that we owed, and anything that would disqualify for us, he paid for.

But then in Jesus' perfect life, he lived such an exemplary life that his life is credited to ours and he qualifies us to enter in, not because of anything we do, but simply because of what he has done for us.

God gives us his account because that's the account that matches God's great love for us.

I love you as I love my son Jesus, so I'm going to give you his account, all of his qualifications.

And because of this love, God has given the full and complete righteousness of Jesus.

And so what that means for you is when you fail, because you have the full and complete righteousness of Jesus, that doesn't change.

In God's economy, you are still completely righteous in his sight, just as if you hadn't sinned.

Now, as a parent, he's going to help you grow, but it doesn't disqualify and remove you out because your qualification is not based on what you do.

Your qualification is based on what Jesus has done for you.

And this new status becomes yours from the very first moment you believe.

God did this for you in Jesus.

But that's not what we're talking about this morning.

I love to talk about it.

We talk about this every week.

I couldn't help myself.

I had to talk about it some this morning.

But what we're talking about in this passage is not simply what God does for you, but what God does to you.

Because this passage is saying that God steps in and does something to us and to change us, to bless us, to empower us, to transform us.

And we call this conversion.

Conversion is simply a word that means change.

One thing changes into another.

Let me give you a little bit more detail of explanation here.

Conversion is a work of God's free grace.

God brings it about in us and we respond by repenting and faith.

Conversion is a work of God's free grace in a person's inner life whereby through faith and repentance they experience a change in heart attitude towards Jesus.

They put away their past life and come to believe in Jesus, establishing a new life lived by faith in and obedience to him, so that instead of moving away from God, they move towards God in everything.

So it changes the way you see God, it changes the way you see yourself, it changes the way you see the world, and it changes the way you see other people, and as a result, it changes the way that you live because Christ comes at the center of all things.

So that's kind of a definition explanation of it.

A description of it is seen here in this passage.

Because Paul is a great picture of a conversion story.

Why did Paul become a Christian?

There is no human reason for Paul to become a Christian.

You often, I often hear people psychologize away the reason that people become Christians.

Is we will say they had some sort of deficiency in their life.

They had a guilty conscience, they had no life purpose, they had no self-esteem.

They were immoral.

There was something missing in their lives.

You hear people say there are all these reasons people become Christians, and those are true.

Those are catalysts that God uses in our lives to bring us to faith in Him.

But those things are not applicable to Paul.

He had purpose in life, he was killing Christians.

He had no guilt for anything he was doing.

He had no shame for anything he was doing.

He had the approval of his community.

He had a path in life that he thought I'm fulfilling what God has called me to do.

And so there's no human reason for Paul to become a Christian.

He wasn't missing anything.

And Paul tells us why he became a Christian.

He said he had a tangible, undeniable encounter with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on the road.

And that changed him.

So the reason that Paul changed was because Jesus was true and Paul was living something that wasn't true.

He was converted because it was true.

And so as you look at Paul's life, his conversion is due to the intervention of God.

God intervened and did something in his life.

It wasn't simply that he was looking for something.

He wasn't looking.

God came looking for him.

And this is what we see in chapter 1, verse 15.

But when he who had set me apart before I was born and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son in me, or some of the translations say to me.

Paul was living in opposition to God.

He wasn't pursuing God.

He didn't want anything to do with the God, the way that the Bible describes him in the New Testament.

Paul was seeking to arrest, imprison, and even kill Christians.

He wasn't seeking Jesus.

He wasn't investigating the claims.

But Jesus was seeking him.

Grace on his mind, love in his heart to go to Paul.

And he says that God did several things for him.

Number one, Paul says, it's right here, he says, God set Paul apart before he was born.

In other words, this is God's initiative.

God took the initiative here.

Number two, God called him by his grace.

While Paul was still breathing out threats and lies and murder, God came to Paul in his grace.

And then number three, he revealed his son in me.

So everything in Paul told Paul, I'm doing everything I'm doing for God, and then God shows up and says, Everything you're doing is wrong.

Your approach to me is wrong, and this is my son.

And it's calling him to change.

So why this?

Why is God doing this?

Well, what we see is this is what God has always been doing since the very first.

With Adam and Eve in the garden, they hid from God.

God came looking for them.

And God called out, Where are you?

He's coming to them.

He's coming to the wayward center because that's who he is in his grace.

Jesus talks about the shepherd who leaves the 99 for the one.

Remember that great story that Jesus?

We're the one.

That Jesus leaves the 99.

He goes looking for the one who's wayward.

In Revelation, Jesus says to the church, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

They're not knocking on Jesus' door.

Jesus is knocking on their door.

He's coming to them.

In Ephesians chapter 2, it says that God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

It's always his initiating, it's always his pursuit, it's always his gift, it's always his grace.

So the question comes, does God love us apart from what we do?

Or does God love us because of something that we do?

That's the first.

God loves us apart from anything we do.

We need God to bring us change.

God has come to us and draws us to himself because there's a stuckness to sin.

We get stuck in sin.

Just you know, counseling and psychology describe various places where we get stuck.

We get stuck in shame.

We get stuck in addiction.

We get stuck in bitterness.

We get stuck in sin that we can't get out of.

And so God comes to us in his grace and in his love to free us from the stuckness of sin, and he enables us to do it.

And this is what he says in this passage he's doing.

In verse chapter 1, verse 15.

He says, He revealed his son in me.

Now I did, I looked at the original language.

Some of us say, well, two makes more sense because it, you know, if you say it's in, that makes it sound like that Paul just had this inward experience with no real tangible reality.

So they say it's two, because when you read the passages in Acts 8 and Acts 26, Paul actually saw a manifestation of light and heard Jesus speak to him, and the people with Jesus, with uh Paul heard the voice, though they didn't see a body speaking to him.

So there's some tangible external thing of God revealing his grace to Paul.

But when he says here that God is revealing his grace in Paul, what he's communicating is that it's it's he's revealing to him not just unavoidable information, he's revealing to him an unavoidable reality, an unavoidable person, a life-changing with Jesus at this moment.

And so he is bringing about a conversion for Paul that he wasn't looking for, but God was looking for him.

This is from South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner J.

M.

Coze.

That makes it sound like it's a really important quote.

Okay, so you've got to listen to this.

There is always something unmotivated about conversion experiences.

It is of their essence that the sinner should be so blinded by lust or greed or pride that the psychic logic leading to the turning point in his life becomes visible to him only in retrospect when his eyes have been opened.

And so he's saying that people don't know it until it happens, and Jesus brings it about.

And, you know, in his quote, he he talks about greed, lust, pride, you know, things that we recognize as sin.

But Paul didn't have those.

So what about the person who is living an externally moral good life?

What about that person?

Kent Hughes, in his uh commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, tells a story about the good person and how the good person comes to understand God's grace.

And he's talking about a, I think, an Anglican church.

I think it's a real account.

Took place in an Anglican church, and uh it took place during the way they do communion, which is they all come forward and they kneel at a kneeling bench and take communion there.

Anyway, he said, he writes On one such occasion, the pastor saw a former thief kneeling beside a judge of the High Court of England.

So taking communion together are a former thief who's gotten out of jail and a judge.

Of the High Court of England.

After his release, the thief had been converted and became a Christian worker.

Yet, as the judge and the former thief knelt together, neither seemed to be aware of the other.

After the service, the judge happened to walk out with the pastor and said, Did you?

He's British, right?

So do we need to?

Did you notice who was kneeling beside me at the communion rail this morning?

The pastor replied, Yes, but I did not think that you did.

The two walked along in silence for a few more moments when the judge declared, What a miracle of grace.

The pastor nodded in agreement.

Yes, what a mira what a marvelous miracle of grace.

Then the judge asked, but to whom do you refer?

The pastor responded, Why to the conversion of that convict?

And the judge said, But I was not referring to him.

I was thinking of myself.

Surprised, the pastor replied, You were thinking of yourself.

I don't understand.

Yes, the judge went on.

It was natural for the burglar to respond to God's grace when he came out of jail.

His life was nothing but a desperate history of crime.

And when he saw the Savior, he knew there was salvation and hope and joy for him.

He understood how much he needed that help, but I was taught from earliest infancy to be a gentleman.

That my word was my bond, that I was to say my prayers, go to church, receive communion.

I went up to Oxford, took my degrees, was called to the bar, and eventually ascended to judge.

My friend, it was God's grace that drew me.

It was God's grace that opened my heart to receive Christ.

I am a greater miracle of his grace.

What he's saying is God has to reveal this.

The person who thinks I'm earning God's favor and righteousness through what I do is in more jeopardy than the person who is in sin, because the person in sin can at least see their need.

But people like Paul can't really see their need.

And so this is why he's saying it's a miracle of grace, because God didn't just reveal Jesus to Paul, he's revealing Jesus in Paul.

This inescapable reality and his need of Jesus.

He was given, and this is part of why Paul is such a fabulous preacher of grace, and why we love to read him, is because of all the people who've ever really tried and been successful and thought, I'm really earning the righteousness of God by doing the things that I'm doing, it would be Paul.

But God comes to him in the height of his self-righteousness and says, This is all wrong.

You're fighting against, you're kicking against the goads, Paul.

And so Paul is able to say, if you think you're doing really good works to make yourself right with God, you're not.

It's keeping you from God.

Because God loves you apart from anything you do.

And it's because of that that God went to a person like Paul.

Not because he was doing, but because he was doing and thought that was making him right.

God had to go to him and show him his error.

And God comes to us and shows us our error.

So a Christian, a Christian.

A Christian is a person who has been converted.

Conversion is a change in someone's very nature, our internal setup, who we are, our mental and emotional and spiritual network that's inside of us.

So that Jesus has become our foundation for understanding reality for what has greatest value and what has what life is all about.

So how does that feel when you are converted?

I can remember mine.

I can remember the moment.

One minute if I was about laws, rules, expectations, disappointment in my life.

And then the next, I was loved, and I was cherished and completely accepted by God, and I went away and wept.

It wasn't that he came to love me at that moment, but he came, he loved me all along, but he came to get me at that moment.

He came to me at that moment.

So for you and for us, uh as we as we think about this, what does this mean for us?

Well, it means that there's this is more than just showing Paul laws and rules.

It meant that Jesus now lives in him, that God didn't just do something for him, but in salvation he does something to him and to us as well.

He changed something to the center of who Paul was.

And so when the Bible talks about what happens to us, it says that Christ is now in us to empower a new way of life.

Colossians chapter 127.

God made known the riches of the mystery which is Christ in you.

So he didn't just reveal Christ to Paul, he revealed Christ in Paul.

Romans 8.10.

If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

Galatians 2.20.

I've been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

So what is he doing to us?

He's bringing healing of our souls to the deepest level so that we can see God more as he is and are enabled by his presence in us and with us to live redemptively in the world.

It brings a life change.

It completely changed Paul's life forever.

And for all who believe in Jesus, it changes them, it changes us as well.

So it isn't simply that it becomes real, it's that Jesus becomes vital and beautiful and desirable.

You want him to be with you.

You feel free, the burden comes off.

You want what he wants for you and for the world, and you you want his vision for the world to become the way that the world really is.

And Paul's view of his pharisaic, Jewish career calling all changed when he met Jesus.

And that's what happens.

But there's a struggle inside of us, maybe for a long time.

Like if I were to ask, how is Jesus the reality of who he is affected the way that we approach life?

How does Jesus affect the way that you approach life as a high schooler?

How does Jesus affect the way that you live life as a wife, a husband, a parent, a child?

How does Jesus affect the way that you live your life as a retiree?

One of the most difficult things about conversion and being changed and brought into that reality of who Jesus is, is that it becomes a challenge to everything else in your life.

And it calls for change.

And the more we're encountering Jesus, the more we want those things to change.

So at the same time, we were finding this uh story about Kylie online.

We came across, we were just riding in the car, we listened to a podcast.

Uh do any of you listen to uh Unbelievable premiere radio podcast?

They do a lot of apologetic things.

Anyway, they were uh doing an interview with somebody named Rahil Patel.

And what fascinated me is he lived 20 years as a Hindu priest before he became a Christian.

He grew up Hindu in London.

So I'll tell you a story.

So Rahil uh at a very early age had to stand up.

In Hindu circles, they also have like a child, a youth group thing.

And so he stood up at this youth thing, spoke, and one of the leaders said, This kid's got it.

He understands Hinduism, he's a great speaker, he could, he can go, he could be a priest.

And so they set him on a path to become priest, and he thought, this will give my life meaning and purpose and significance, all the things I want, this is going to be fantastic.

So when he went to become a priest, they he left home, he went to India.

He's in basically an encampment with a lot of other people who are being trained to be priest, and he wasn't expecting how rigorous this is going to be.

So they actually fast.

Very little water, no food for a while.

And he said, as he was prostrating himself, uh, you know, saying the prayers that they say, he said, this voice came into his head.

It wasn't audible, but it wasn't also from him necessarily.

He said, the voice said, Have you made the right decision?

Are you in the right place?

And he shoved it down, but he couldn't forget it.

So he went on to kind of greatness in the midst of Hinduism.

So at a very early age, people recognized his gifts, his talents, and uh, he began to be an internationally renowned speaker.

And so he would go and speak places, and meanwhile, there's this nagging doubt that's there about Hinduism.

And one day he was in a bookshop and he found a children's storybook Bible, uh, and he bought it, and he hid it among all of his Hindu texts in his home office uh so nobody would find it.

And there's just this kind of strange disparity of all these Hindu texts, and in the middle is this children's Bible.

And uh one day he got out the Bible.

He says, I remember taking it out one day.

There was a connection.

It was incredible.

It felt so good.

I knew there was something very special here, but I shouldn't explore it because it was dangerous.

So I put it away.

When he would go, he was sent to London and they started Hindu temples and things.

But he would go into Christian cathedrals in Europe and just sit and look at the artwork.

And he was always taken by Jesus and the artwork.

He said, because Jesus was something different than you encounter in Hinduism.

Hinduism is all about karma, good karma and bad karma, but there's no personal relationship with God.

And so it's not really tangible.

But he said, here was something tangible, this real person who lived.

So he's really struggling with this, and it's starting to affect what he's preaching in Hindu temples.

And it gets back to the powers that be, and they call him back to India and say, hey, what's going on here?

We're hearing these rumors about what you're teaching.

And uh he's kind of bringing in a little bit more kind of Christian teaching and seeping into Hinduism there.

And they said, uh, we're not gonna let you teach anymore.

And he said, fine.

And then what he said in the podcast was because I didn't believe it anymore anyway.

And they said, we're gonna send you uh back to India.

He said, No, I don't want to go to India.

The UK is my home.

And uh they said, Okay, we're gonna send you to the UK, but you can't preach.

He said, That's fine.

So they sent him back to London.

And so his first couple of weeks there, a friend, a friend of his just said, Look, you've been doing the hind, you know, been in uh monasteries and temples for years.

Just go and walk.

Don't do anything, just take a month off and just go walk the streets of London.

Well, the first Sunday he was there, he was walking this one street, kind of a back alley, and there were these two men out front.

I think one of them might have been Dick Nangle, big smile on his face, invited him into their church.

And so Rahel went into the church and he sat down and he felt this peace come over him.

He listened to the music.

He listened to the sermon, and he said that same voice that spoke to his soul so many years before came back and said, You're home.

He said, after the service, he went home and he sat on the little bed in the little room where he was sitting, staying, and he said he prayed to receive Christ and he was baptized six weeks later.

Everything completely changed from for the better.

This is what Paul David Tripp says.

God will never give up on you.

He will never walk away in disgust.

He will never regret that he placed his love on you.

He will love you just as much on your worst day as he does on your best day.

This gift of love is yours forever.

So does God love us because of something we do?

Or does God love us apart from what we do?

God loves us apart from what we do.

So he sent his son to do what we could never do, to live a perfectly obedient life and to pay for all the sins that we could never pay for.

And what that means is God loves us, will never give up on us, and will never walk away in disgust.

This morning, God loves you.

You belong to him.

And what he wants is for you to live out of that love and the freedom that comes with it.

Let me pray for us.