What does it mean to ‘be converted‘?

It’s something weve seen many times in our talks on Acts – people’s lives radically changed – and I want to give you an understanding of what God is doing when someone is converted and what brings it about.

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(download the powerpoint slides from here)

When Paul and other early Christian spoke about the ‘body‘ and used phrases like ‘the body of Christ’ there was something going on in their heads that doesn’t go on in ours.

• We know this from the famous writers like Plato, Pliny, Aristotle (the big names) as well as a host of smaller names, “the body” was a catch-phrase for the whole of society.
• When Aristotle wrote about ‘the body’ he was referring to society as a whole.

So when Paul and other NT writers talked about ‘the body’ they weren’t just thinking of the small church they were building, they were thinking of the whole of society.

• They were called by God to change the whole of society, not just a few individuals.
• And they knew that the only way you change a society is by changing the individuals!

The kingdom of God grows one life at a time! <ppt>

This word ‘converted’ is used in so many different ways

• I had my car ‘converted’ to LPG
• I had my TV ‘converted’ to digital
• I want convert these dollars into pounds
• I’m going to convert my loft!

We see someone very keen on something and “he’s a convert”

Actually this is a very Biblical term

Matt 18:3 Jesus said “I tell you the truth, unless you are converted and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The fundamental idea behind being converted it is the concept of turning around and heading in a different direction.

For every true Christian – that’s what’s happened.

• I used to be going in one direction, my direction, until God reached out to me in his grace, I placed him in the driving seat of my life and now I’m going in His direction!

• and everyone’s story is going to be different. (that’s why we find services like baptismal services etc so inspiring)

So what brings about that turning, that conversion?

Today we’re going to look at examples from Acts and pick out some principles.

Some of us are turned by a

God-ordained meeting

We bumped into someone

Lydia is a classic example

Acts 16:13-15  On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptised, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Lydia – a dealer in purple cloth – this put her in the upper echelons of society as purple was one of the most difficult dyes to manufacture and purple cloth one of the most expensive to own.

• Here was a lady with a reputation to protect and a business to build.
• However, Luke doesn’t focus on her business prowess, he makes one telling comment

v14 “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message”

Humanly speaking she had met Paul quite by chance – he had just turned up one day at the place of prayer and there was Paul, a visitor, who told her about Christ.

• But with God, no chance meeting is ever purpose-less!
• And I can imagine Paul unpacking the truths of the gospel as I’m unpacking them to you now and, as he spoke, her heart was strangely warmed by the Holy Spirit
• her hungry soul was beginning to drink from the water of life
• the Lord opened up her heart and she said “yes” to God

she had turned

One of my favourite writers is David Watson (See I believe in Evangelism, p101)

He tells in one of his books how he was on holiday in a hotel, taking a few days’ break from a frantic round of speaking engagements.

• While he was praying one day he felt the Lord gently rebuking him for being a silent ambassador for him in the hotel.“I’m calling you to be a witness for me here!”
• Watson’s reply was “Lord I’m on holiday! Give me break!”
• That afternoon was pouring with rain and he got into conversation with a man who seemed to have everything – a gorgeous wife, lovely children, a good business a strong physique and a top of the range BMW!
• No sooner had Watson started talking with him than he found him searching for meaning in life – in spite of his material wealth, he was spiritually poverty-stricken – he was empty. Crucially, he was sufficiently self-aware to admit it. They talked for a couple of hours.
• A fortnight later that man, on his own, turned his life over to Christ and was never the same again

An unremarkable conversion story, but a story I could replicate a thousand times over!

• God brought about a turning, a conversion, in that man through a chance meeting and through the simple unspectacular witness of an ordinary person.

Can I encourage you to anticipate chance meetings like that and use your words to help somebody (anybody) make a connection between you and your heavenly Father!

• You never know what might happen a fortnight down the line!

Another example – Priscilla and Aquilla Acts 18 for you to follow up by yourself or in small group

Power encounters

Cause us to turn

Philippian Jailor Acts 16:25-30 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.

(Under Roman law the jailers would suffer the same penalty as the prisoners they guarded if they allowed any of them to escape) that’s why …

28 .. Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

We might have expected God to set the prisoners free – he didn’t! No-one escaped!

• And that fact is what shook this jailor to the core.
• It was something remarkable that he couldn’t explain without bringing God into the picture.
• And it brought about a turning in his life

That’s what God’s power looks like! …something remarkable that couldn’t be explained without God being in the equation.

• And as a Christ-followers we should expect to see power encounters come from the hand of God in our lives!

Now I want to bring you down to earth.

• What we have recorded here by Luke in Acts are a few remarkably impressive power encounters

BUT – I strongly suspect that there were many, many more!

• I suspect that these impressive encounters were the most dramatic that Luke witnessed
• but they would have been surrounded by hundreds – even thousands – of run-of-the-mill power encounters that didn’t make it into the final cut when Luke was writing his book.
• God working in unexpected ways in ordinary people.

And as a Christ-followers we should expect to see power encounters come from the hand of God in our lives

So let’s get this in proportion – We make a dire mistake when we think that the Christian life is only truly spirit-inspired (only genuinely charismatic) when there is a Philippian jailor style of drama every week!

• The NT church wasn’t like that – and neither is ours.
• We can’t live by drama – But we can live by faith!

And expect and pray God for run-of-the-mill power encounters frequently and often as we walk with Him! To be open to see his fingerprints over the unexpected stuff that happens in life!

Whenever God does something in our lives, whenever he takes the initiative, that’s power encounter! And it is given to us so cause us to turn to him.

And then in his sovereignty we may well see the dramatic taking place!

I pray that we will have spiritual eyes to spot the power of God in our lives!

• For us to increasingly see the power-encounters – and turn to him as a result

Let me ask you

• Has the Lord brought something unexpected into your life?
• That could be a point at which he’s saying “turn to me”

he he brought a tragedy into your life that you neither expected nor wanted.

• That could well be a point where he’s looking to you to turn to him.

Elizabeth Elliot lost her husband when he was murdered by some Auca Indians he was trying to reach as a missionary in the Ecuadorian rain-forest.

• She describes the loneliness that she felt after that tragedy as a ‘gift from God’ – a point at which she could – and did – turn to him.

Another example: Tabitha in Acts 9 for small group

A parents’ influence

Causes us to turn

Stay in Acts 17:

look at the Philippian Jailor’s household.

Acts 16:30-34 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved– you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptised. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God– he and his whole family.

What is significant here is the influence of the head of the household

The jailor was converted (he ‘turned’) and immediately Paul told his whole household about Jesus.

So often in evangelism it’s when the head of the household turns that others follow in his wake.

The Jailor had turned to Christ and now he was going to let the rest of his household to turn too (they normally lived on the premises of the jail)

We’re not told who else was in this household, there may have been servants and children and a wife, but whoever it was, the head of the household set the spiritual example here!

The head of the household – usually the husband – although with so many different shaped family units today it may not be – the head of the household has an enormous influence on the other members of the home.

If you are the head of a household can I urge you to be a Godly example to the home God’s given you!

One thing that saddens the heart of God eeply is when heads of households run down or criticise God’s people or God’s church in fromt of their children. >>>

Timothy Acts 16 & 2Tim another case

God-given Visions

Cause people to turn

Cornelius Acts 10

(&Peter!)

Acts 10:1-8  At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” 4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

Here is God communicating through a vision or a dream.

• And he is speaking to a highly influential man who had about 100 soldiers under his command.

I wish I could have been there to ask Cornelius “What did it look like?”!

• Way back in the OT God promised that visions and dreams would become one way he would speak
• Joel 2:28 “Your young me will see visions and your old men will dream dreams!”
• And when the Holy Spirit fell on the early church in Acts 2 that prophecy was fulfilled for the first time – and here it’s being fulfilled again!

And still today God speaks through visions and dreams

• I have heard several times recently about people in the Moslem world who have turned to Christ because they’ve seen a vision of him.
• We must beware that we don’t write off this channel of communication which God has used throughout history

This vision was not given to Cornelius because he was a super-spiritual Christian!

It was given to his as a ‘God-fearer’ – a spiritually enquiring, God-respecting not-yet-Christian – and it caused him to turn!

In you small group I’m getting you to look at Ananias Acts 9:10-23

• There is a significant common feature in these two events.
• In both cases God used the vision to help them overcome deep seated prejudice that Ananias had toward Saul and that Peter had towards the gentiles.
• In both cases God used a vision to help these people think outside their normal tramlines and realise that God was bigger than they had previously thought – encompassing a greater vision than they had in mind.

Inspired teaching

Turns people

Acts 17:1-4 As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said. 4 Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.

What changed their lives?

• It was teaching that was inspired and anointed by the Holy Spirit.
• It was Paul’s teaching – over a period of time – that made the difference.

I was speaking to someone only yesterday who said that he couldn’t pin down a particular date on which any dramatic event had taken place in his life –

• but there was not question about the reality of his faith and his trust in Christ!

He had heard and taken on board Inspired teaching and gradually turned to Christ.

I want to correct one possible misapprehension that we could slip into having heard all this.

• I can imagine some of us saying
• “Well I haven’t had a life-changing chance meeting, I can’t recall a power encounter where God blew me away, I haven’t had particularly Godly parents, and I’ve certainly never had a vision! –
• am I really a true Christian?!

Let me ask you

• Have you heard the word of God? (in church, over the internet, by reading books etc.)?
• Have you responded to the word of God in the sense that you now model your life on Jesus Christ?

If your answer is ‘yes’ then whether you’ve experienced any of the more dramatic things I’ve described doesn’t matter greatly –

• God has done a work in your life!

• If you say that, as best I can, I’m modelling my life on Jesus and I’m trusting him for the rest – for eternal side of my life – then you are in the kingdom of God!

And you’re there because you’ve heard God-inspired, God-breathed teaching and taken it on board for yourself.

Ephesus Acts 19:1-12

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