7.19.9 – Conversion

I’ve been building this faith pyramid this summer to remind us all what we’re about. God is. He has spoken. There is truth. God loves the world. God in 3 persons. These are all important and interlocked.

There was a story I heard years ago about a little boy who wanted to be a fireman. All the toys he played with were fire trucks and firemen action figures. As he went through school, all his reports were about firemen and firefighting. When he graduated from high school he went off to college to study firefighting techniques because he wanted to be the best firefighter he could be. He did so well in college, he got a scholarship to study for a Masters degree in firefighting. From there, he got a Phd.

But he wasn’t done. He traveled the world, talking to firefighters everywhere and learning the newest and most effective techniques. Soon, he was regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on firefighting and was asked to lecture all over the world about new techniques and demonstrate new equipment. He was in the forefront of the movement to better understand fires and better prepare people to fight them.

As the years went on, he lectured more and more and wrote books and was given awards and acclaim all over the world. When—as an old man—he died, there were articles about him in all the newspapers and they mentioned him on the evening news. Fire stations all over the world flew their flags at half mast. Oddly, though, he had never in his life fought a fire.

We’ve built the bottom half of the pyramid, but that’s only part of the picture. At the end of every sermon I try to give us all an answer to the question, “What do I DO with this?” so we can apply what we’ve been studying to our lives.

Now, we got the first half of the pyramid built. What do we DO with all this?

Convert

I have a little thing for my laptop computer that converts the ACcurrent coming from a wall socket to the DCcurrent my laptop battery needs. Without the converter—if I just plugged the computer directly into the wall—it would burn up my battery (and wouldn’t do my computer a lot of good, either). I have to have that converter.

We are sinful people but God is holy. Trying to put us together with God is like trying to connect the wrong ends of two magnets. Something has to change.

Malachi 3:6
For I the LORD do not change. (ESV)

If he doesn’t change, then we have to. One of the great things, though, is that God himself provides the agent of our change and gives us the Holy Spirit to work that change.

But we MUST change!

Changing Places

I talked a couple weeks ago about the thief on the cross. Hanging there next to Jesus, he realized that Jesus was his only hope. He submitted to Jesus and Jesus told him, “This day, you will be with me in paradise.

You might say they traded places. Jesus became sin so that that man (and the rest of us!) could be saved. That sinner, became sinless because of Jesus’s blood and got to go to the place that—logically—it would seem that only Jesus could enter.

We call this being saved or being born again. Or being converted.

John 3:5-7
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'" (ESV)

We talk about having a “saving faith”. I am also confident that Jesus did all the work on Calvary that is necessary for me to be saved. Yet, he expects my faith to produce something different in the way I live my life. Right as Paul tells us about this saving faith in Ephesians 2:8-9, he follows it up in verse 10 by saying that God has prepared works of service for us to do.

A missionary to New Guinea once told me that when the gospel was presented to this one culture, the people seemed to receive it eagerly. They carved wooden crosses and hung them on their belts for all to see. The problem was: those belts were already full. They already had a wooden carving for the god of the harvest, and one for the god of rain, and one for the god of fertility, etc. They had just added this “new god” in with the pantheon.

We, however, are not just adding God in. We are to empty ourselves of self and be taken over by God. God above, God beside and God within.
We do what Christ would do. We are his agents. His emissaries.

We Are Different

1 Peter 2:9
But you are a special people, a holy nation, priests and kings, a people given up completely to God, so that you may make clear the virtues of him who took you out of the dark into the light of heaven. (BBE)

The KJV says we are a “peculiar people”.

“A follower who seeks to lead like Jesus must be willing to be treated like Jesus. Some will follow. Others will throw stones.” –C. Gene Wilkes

I think one of the things that troubles our modern world is that most people can’t really see any difference between themselves and those who call themselves Christians. We watch the same movies, listen to the same music, tell the same gossip. We should be noticed. Not just for what we don’t do, though, but for what we DO. We should lead in showing love and compassion.

What makes us different is who is in charge. It’s not me. It’s not you. It’s God. We are “a people given up completely to God, so that you may make clear the virtues of him who took you out of the dark into the light of heaven.”

So the twin temptation becomes to a] stay out of the public so we won’t be pilloried and 2] not really live that differently, anyway.
We’re supposed to be lights. We’re supposed to be seen. We’re supposed to be different!

We’ve been converted! We are not what we used to be!

What do I DO with this?
• Resolve to be different by
• Living as Christ’s agent in this world
• Remember: he’s already done the hard work