Transformissional Conversion Part II
- David Fairchild
- Sep 23, 2007
- Series: Acts
INTRODUCTION
We've been looking at the story of Paul's conversion and early ministry, how an enemy of God who was spiritually an orphan was welcomed in to become a child of the Father. Luke, however, abruptly shifts from Paul's life to Peter's life and the two miracles mentioned at the end of chapter 9.
Chapter 10 is a continued unfolding of God's plan which was promised in Acts 1 where Christ said to His disciples that when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the promise, comes upon them and they receive His power, they will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Luke is clearly showing this unfolding drama as he takes us from the time spent in Jerusalem and the persecution that breaks out in Judea which sends Phillip to the main city of Samaria, to now seeing the Gospel penetrate those who were considered the furthest form God, the Gentiles at the end of the earth!
The Spirit of Christ is shown in great power as the Church continues to expand and catch people up in a love, joy and peace that radically transformed them. Chapter 10 is the story of Cornelius the Roman Centurion who is converted as the Holy Spirit and Gospel collide in his life. This story pushes the door of the Gospel all the way open as God demonstrates that His plan for restoration was not reserved to a particular race or nationality of people.
This story teaches us four very important truths about the nature of true conversion.
STUDY
I. Transformissional conversion is God's initiative
Verse 29: "So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me."
What is the answer? Cornelius' answer is found in the following verses:
Verses 30-33: "And Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, "Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea." 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.'"
In other words, the answer to Peter's question is, "I sent for you Peter because God first sent for me." Cornelius would have never sent for Peter had God not first sent for him. Cornelius wasn't searching for the Gospel, he wasn't seeking God, he was happy with his moral and ethical life as a God-fearer.
It was God who intervened both for Cornelius and for Peter. Without God's initiative Cornelius wouldn't have asked for Peter and Peter wouldn't have looked for Cornelius. The two never would have come together over the Gospel had God not first been working.
What is common about this story and ours is not that if you're going to have the power of conversion you need a vision. Most times in the Scriptures there's nothing like that. It didn't happen to the Ethiopian finance minister, it didn't happen to Lydia which we'll read about in a few weeks, and many other conversions don't have visions involved. But, what we do see in conversions through all places and times is that though there may not be a miraculous sign, the person who is converted in a profound way comes to realize that their search for God was only because God was searching for them first.
You may not see this right away at conversion, and you may be on the front end of realizing it now. Conversion becomes powerful to you when you begin to apprehend that though you thought you were searching and seeking, it was God who had been seeking you out and drawing you to Himself all along.
When you understand this, you amen what C.S. Lewis says:
"Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man's search for God.' To me, they might as well talk about the mouse's search for the cat."
He's saying that the mouse doesn't search for the cat, the cat searches for the mouse. We don't search for God unless God first comes and does something to our hearts to pull us towards Him. If you've experienced real conversion, you know that's true.
What does this mean? This is phenomenal news! If you're on a search to find God and you really, genuinely want to know Him, you don't have to search with anxiety. Search with confidence. No one has to be afraid they won't find Him, though they're really looking but they're fearful they'll miss Him.
The only reason you're discouraged is because you're giving yourself too much credit. You're not capable of aching for God. You're not capable of longing for God. And you're not capable of missing God if He's already begun to draw you to Himself. You would never want Him unless He was already working in your heart to see Him.
To put it another way, a sense of His absence is a sign of His presence. Why? You're not capable of feeling His absence. You're not capable of missing Him. A sense of His absence is a sign of His presence. This is good news.
Real life-changing power in conversion is the realization that God comes and initiates with you first rather than you initiating with Him. This is grace. If it were left up to us to want Him, long for Him, and miss His presence, we'd never find Him because our hearts would never want Him.
II. Transformissional conversion is not morality or tradition
Let's continue to look at the story. Look at verse 30 and 31 again.
Verse 30-31: "And Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, "Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God."'"
The next verse is basically "therefore..." Therefore what? What follows is incredibly important. What the angel says next simply doesn't follow in our categories of thinking when we think about morality and religion.
The angel is saying to him, "we've seen your life, we've heard your prayer and that you're a good man who gives to the poor. God has heard your prayers and has recognized your generosity. Therefore..." What? What does he say? Does the angel say, "We just wanted to tell you that if you keep it up you'll have a relationship with God and everything will be fine, you'll enter into joy and peace with the Father for eternity"? No, he says something that blows our minds.
To the world's way of thinking, his statement simply doesn't follow logically. "Cornelius, you're a God-fearing man, you love the poor. Therefore, you need to be converted!" That is essentially what he's saying. "Send for Peter." Why? So he can bring you the Gospel so you can hear it and believe it and become converted into the family of God. This is stunning.
It's the same thing that happens to Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus is very much like Cornelius, except he's a Jewish religious leader. But he is very righteous, very pious, a God-fearing man, someone who took His religion and morality very seriously. He comes to Jesus and respectfully says to Him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him" (John 3:2).
Nicodemus is an accomplished man, one of wealth and power, someone who is well respected and has impeccable moral credentials. He's not a proud, righteous man, he demonstrates humility. Nicodemus doesn't have an attitude with Jesus like the other religious leaders have. He knows Jesus is sent from God. So what does Jesus say? Does Jesus say, "Nicodemus, you're a great guy, you're very moral and very respectful of Me. You know the Bible and you're very spiritual and religious. You only need a couple of things to top off what you already have. Just a couple of minor additions and you'll have the whole package." No!
Jesus says to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). He's basically saying to him, "Nicodemus, you must be converted. Your whole life and being has to be remade and turned around because you're facing the wrong direction."
To be born again means to start all over through a rebirth, to be radically converted and begin to see God with entirely new eyes, to love God with a new heart, and to know God with a transformed mind. It's a total conversion that must take place. And it only happens by God's grace, not by Nicodemus' or Cornelius's record or past performance.
It's understandable that we'd think that conversion is reserved for those whose lives are visibly bankrupt. Those who are liars and cheaters, those who are addicts and abusers-of course they need to be born again and converted.
What about Cornelius and Nicodemus? They are as moral and religious and good as you could be. But what does the angel say, what does Jesus say? You must be converted. You must be absolutely born again. Reborn and remade.
Until this truth drops into your heart, you're not going to have the kind of explosive experience of Gospel power in your conversion.
Since we haven't done a great job of understanding this ourselves we have miscommunicated this Gospel to the world.
When we tell someone they must be born again, that they must be converted to Christianity, most people assume that to be a call to become moral and religious. They hear a call to traditional moral values. But that can't be what it is!
Look at Cornelius, look at Nicodemus, look at Paul which we studied for two or three weeks. They had traditional moral and religious values oozing from them and yet they still were called to be converted!
The call to Christian conversion is not a call to traditional morality or some traditional religion; it's a challenge to morality and religion. The call to radical conversion is an affront to morality and religion, not a call to it. It is especially a call to those who are moral and religious. Why would that be?
The Scripture teaches us that the problem with the human race, and the problem with the world is that humans attempt to put themselves in the place of God.
I'll bet if you went out to the mall and asked several people if they agreed with the statement, "the problem with the human race is that humans attempt to put themselves in the place of God," you would get agreement. That's not a very controversial statement in our culture.
That's because most people would understand that comment as those who attempt to speak for God and do religious things in His name when they shouldn't, or they would think it means that we end up judging one another when that's up to God to judge the heart. Right?
But there other ways we attempt to put ourselves in the place of God that are far more damaging and hurtful to ourselves.
One way is to break all the moral rules and the other is to keep all the moral rules.
One way says, "I don't need anyone telling me what right and wrong is, I decide that for myself. I don't need a God out there saying anything to me; I can do what I want." This person attempts to be God by becoming their own lord of their life.
Another way is to say, "I've worked really hard to keep the rules and play fair. I have been moral and I have outworked and outperformed people I know. Because I'm good I deserve to go to heaven, I deserve to be saved." This person attempts to be God by becoming their own savior.
One makes you a law-breaking criminal, the other makes you either a self righteous, stuck up, judgmental Pharisee or it makes you beat down and guilty because you never feel good enough.
Both of those approaches are just different ways of being your own savior and lord. They are both harmful to the human race and they distort us as humans and crush the soul.
The most religious and moral person needs to be converted and in many ways has a bigger problem than the one who is obviously flawed and broken. The one who is flawed but says they're doing what they want at least can see they're not perfect, but the one who thinks they are doesn't even see their self-centeredness and hypocritical nature. They don't see how they've made themselves their own savior and lord. They're blind to it.
They see how the criminal has broken the rules, but they think they're doing fine with the good they do.
The person who thinks they have it all together and has lived up is in the most acute need of real conversion and transformation.
If the Gospel is true, then those who think they're spiritually ok through their efforts are really not, and the ones who realize they aren't ok and are broken and in need, are the ones who are on their way and getting it.
If the Gospel is true, then the depth of your understanding of it hasn't even begun unless you see the difference between what it means to be born again, converted, and what it means to be good, religious, and moral.
III. Transformissional conversion is the power of the Holy Spirit
Verses 44-46: "While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God."
Do you see how powerful conversion is?
Worship
In the Bible, worship is ascribing the greatest worth to something. Worship is giving ultimate value to something which you cherish and adore. The Scriptures show us that every human, whether they claim to be religious or not, is a worshipper. Everyone ascribes ultimate meaning and value, love and adoration to something which they deem to be of greatest worth.
We all have something which is our bottom line, our ultimate source for meaning and happiness. Every impulse of our heart has something at the core of it that is cherished above all else and this shapes all we do. Whatever it is you value and adore is your spiritual compass and oxygen. It gives you your motivation.
If it's others' approval, if that is the main thing your heart cherishes and looks for, you're controlled by what people think of you.
If your main value is power, then you're controlled by status and money. But you do not control yourself the way you think, you're controlled by a master, something which drives you and causes you to do, think and feel in all that you do. That's worship. You're controlled by what your heart most values. What it most adores and praises.
You can not change until you change what you worship. You can work as hard as you want on your will power, work all the programs and follow all the steps, yet all changes in your life will only be superficial until you change what you value and worship.
You will not have any legitimate transformation and lasting change until what you worship is changed.
Let me give you an example. When I was a non-Christian and very promiscuous, I was driven by my need to meet a girl, get to know her and then sleep with her. When I came to a philosophical belief in God, I changed many of my habits. I stopped cussing and I stopped sleeping around in the numbers I was previously. I stopped fighting as much. I basically became a moral person. My outward appearance had changed. Instead of working jobs that involved promoting nightclubs and other interesting work, I got a professional job, began to settle down a bit and looked to have my life together. I was even proud of giving off this image of having it together.
What had happened was that as a new, professing believer, I didn't just want to attend a men's group, I wanted to run them. I didn't just want to sit and discuss the Bible in Bible studies, I wanted to contribute and be looked at as the one who had all the answers. Here's the problem though, I wasn't converted! I hadn't changed at all because I wasn't praising God yet.
What I worshipped and what controlled me had yet to be changed. Sex wasn't really about the sex; it was about the power and control. When that changed, I just switched it to religion and morality. I had to be in control and would never admit that I wasn't. I could never stand here as I am this morning and admit that I was and am broken and need repair, a beggar that needs bread. I could never do that!
It was control that drove me in my irreligious days and it was control that drove me in my religious days. Why? Because I worshipped and valued above all else power and control which was a way to gain my identity. Playing sports my whole life, getting into martial arts, girls, and religion all created a performance and control impulse in me that was not dealt a blow until what I worshipped and adored most was changed. When I get myself into trouble, it's because I'm not worshipping the One who is my beauty and value, my joy and my meaning.
We all have some bottom line without which our life would be unbearable and meaningless. Is it power, control, comfort, or approval for you? Is it something else? What is the fundamental praise of your life?
Until your heart's most fundamental worship is changed, you haven't changed. You can have all the accountability groups and make all the moral commitments and exercise your will until you're blue in the face, but you can not change until you're spiritually converted and you begin to praise God. When the Holy Spirit changes you psychologically, it changes what your worship.
Until God and His love for you are the praise of your life, you have yet to change. God's love needs to become that real to you.
Tongues
Verse 46a: "For they were hearing them speaking in tongues..."
When we get into chapter 11, Peter is going to recount for us this story and he says something very interesting.
Acts 11:15: "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning."
What is Peter thinking of? He's thinking of Pentecost back in Acts 2.
What does speaking in tongues mean here? It means the same as it did in chapter 2. Peter knew what God was saying to him. He remembered the significance of the Pentecost conversion.
What is Pentecost? Why is it significant? If you remember our teaching in Acts 2 and the Pentecost story, you'll remember that Pentecost was a baptism of the Holy Spirit and it was a celebration for the Jews as a remembrance of the Feast of the Firstfruits.
In this agrarian culture, harvest was incredibly significant. When the firstfruits were brought in and eaten, thanksgiving was made to God for their firstfruits as they celebrated God's goodness towards them. Usually the harvest happened 50 days after Passover. This is where we get the word Pentecost. It meant 50 days. It was 50 days after the Passover, which fell on a Sunday.
The Spirit is called the Spirit of the firstfruits because He gives us a taste of the future fullness of God's inbreaking Kingdom. The Spirit gives us a taste of the kind of unity we'll experience as the first message preached is one in all these various languages.
The last time you see the gathered nations in one language is in Genesis 10. In Genesis 11 we see the Tower of Babel. The people of the earth decided to make a name for themselves instead of God. God divided their tongues and confused their language so that they no longer were gathered in one accord. They were scattered and confused, unable to speak to one another like they had previously.
When we try to justify ourselves and become our own saviors, the result is racial and social hostility and the destruction of human community. In Acts 2, God came down to create a new people and empower them and show them all His goodness, and the first thing that happens is that the barriers of the races came tumbling down.
When Christ was crucified, God tore the dividing curtain in the temple in two from top to bottom to show that we now have access to the holy of holies through Christ. Now, as He fills the Church with the Spirit of Christ, the sin division which kept the nations separated is torn as well.
The first sermon was preached in all these different languages to show that when God came down, He reversed the curse and reconnected those who were previously separate.
There is no culture that is more appropriate than any other. The first worship service of the Church was in a variety of tongues so that all gathered could hear the wonders of God praised in their own language.
This is significant since God was saying that neither Hebrew nor Greek, neither Latin nor Aramaic was dominant, nor was one culture the model of praise. It was a new Kingdom culture created by a God that draws diverse people together in worship and declaration of His wonders.
God is strongly showing the importance of this in Acts 2 at Pentecost. But what happened to Peter after Pentecost?
God did tell all the disciples that He wanted them to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. When Peter enters Cornelius' house, what does he say to him?
Verse 28: "And he said to them, ‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation...'"
All of Peter's life, he had been trained up to not enter a Gentile's home or eat with one. He then tells them that the only reason he's there is because God told him to go.
Peter preaches the Gospel to Cornelius and the Holy Spirit falls upon them and God gives the Gentiles their own version of Pentecost. This reminds Peter what Pentecost was all about. God was converting Peter as much as He was converting Cornelius.
Peter is a good lesson for us. If there are racial groups in our city who we don't like, whom we want nothing to do with, we're resisting the Holy Spirit. The flow, force, and job of the Holy Spirit to overcome racial division to bring people together that would naturally never come on their own.
Tongues are the social stamp that shows that racial superiority is over.
The Holy Spirit not only changes you spiritually and psychologically, but also sociologically.
IV. Transformissional conversion comes through the Gospel
Verse 44: "While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word."
The Holy Spirit doesn't just come in abstraction. If God or the angel wanted the Holy Spirit to come into Cornelius' life, why didn't God just supernaturally shock Him?
Angels certainly could have done this better than Peter. But the Spirit is not just an abstract force. You can ask for the Holy Spirit to hit you all day long, but the Holy Spirit comes through belief in the Gospel.
If you want the Holy Spirit for the first time, believe the Gospel. You want more of the Holy Spirit's presence, believe the Gospel more deeply.
This happened "While Peter was still saying these things..." What are "these things?" Verse 38 shows us:
Verse 38: "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."
Jesus was led by the Spirit in a perfect life, pleasing to the Father. Jesus came to free captives of the enemy.
Also, Jesus died and took the curse.
Verse 39: "And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree"
This means it was a cursed death.
Jesus led a perfect life to earn a blessing, but at the end of His life He took a curse. Why did He do that? He took the curse for us. How do we know He was victorious, how do we know He took the curse for us? Peter explains.
Verse 40: "but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear"
How do we know this really happened?
Verse 41: "not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead."
We saw Him, we touched Him, and we ate with Him after He rose from the dead.
Verse 43: "To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
This is when the Spirit came down on Cornelius. It was when the Gospel was proclaimed.
Jesus talked about a baptism of fire earlier in the Gospel of Luke. In this story Jesus and the disciples are traveling through Samaria and the Samaritans were nasty to them and wouldn't let them stay there. They were hostile to them.
The disciples said to Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54). Why did they make such a request?
They knew Jesus was a prophet, even more than a prophet. They knew in the book of the Old Testament that Elijah was a prophet and when the soldiers came to get Elijah fire came down from heaven and destroyed them. So if Elijah was so great that fire rained down from heaven to judge, certainly the way they were treating Jesus deserved fiery judgment.
Jesus rebukes them. A little later in Luke 12 Jesus says something startling:
Luke 12:49-50: "I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!"
If you understand what He's saying in this parallel, you'll see why He said not to call fire down on the Samaritans.
Jesus says he came to cast fire on earth, but He has a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is His distress until it's accomplished.
When the soldiers came for Elijah fire came down to consume them, when the soldiers came for Jesus, nothing happened, why? Because on the cross Jesus took the fire of God's judgment. Jesus took the punishment of sin, so we could have the fire of God's power, so we could have the fire of God's beauty and love.
Jesus was baptized with God's fire so we could be baptized with God's love and grace and power.
On the cross, Jesus was baptized in God's absence so that we who believe in Him, could be immersed in God's presence. Jesus got the baptism of fire and judgment so we could have the baptism of power! Do you see this?
This is what changes you. When Cornelius' household heard the Gospel and realized that the fire of God's judgment came down on Jesus for their sin, the fire of God's beauty and power came down on them.
Augustine teaches us that the real problem we have in our lives is not that we're just breaking a bunch of rules. It's inordinate love.
For example, if you love your children more than anything, more than God, you're going to crush them and they're going to crush you. They can't pay the freight of your life that only God can. You're going to control them and if anything goes wrong with them, you'll come apart.
If you love your nation more than anything in the world, more than God, it will lead to racism and militarism. Augustine isn't saying there's anything wrong with loving your children or loving your nation. The problem isn't that you love them too much, but that you love God too little in relation to them. That's the problem.
The only way you're going to be healed is if you love God more than your children, more than your nation. How are you going to do that? Are you going to just try to work up more love on your own? No.
The moment you sense His infinite suffering for you, your heart will melt. It's only when you realize that God's judgment fell upon Jesus so that His love could fall upon you through the Holy Spirit.
That's when it comes down on us.
Conclusion
Are you one of the individuals who look down upon others and think they'll never be worthy of God's love? Wait a minute, God is showing that you shouldn't look at any racial group with prejudice and say that they're unclean.
What if you're doing that to yourself? What if you look at yourself and see that you're unclean? You need to look at the Gospel afresh today and trust what is being said. No one seeks after God and senses His presence unless God was already at work in your life drawing you to Himself.
Call nothing God has made clean, unclean, even yourself.
This message was heavily influenced by Tim Keller's series on The Necessity of Belief
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