THE CONVERSION OF
THE WORST SINNER
“…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim 1:15).
That’s
quite a statement to make. This declaration comes from a man who was the
subject of the most famous conversion in all of the NT and, many say, in the
history of the world. This conversion is regarded as second only to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ as the most convincing proof of the Christian
faith.
Google
“conversion” and you will find how many milliliters are two cups. Ask Siri on
your iPhone and she will tell you what the conversion is from inches to
centimeters. Most of us are caught between metric and imperial measurements.
But whether you are talking about a cup of vinegar, or 236.59 milliliters of
vinegar, it’s still vinegar. The substance has not changed.
What the
conversion of Saul proves is that if the worst of sinners can be brought to
faith in Jesus Christ, anyone can be. And the substance of who Saul had been
was changed, as the saying goes, from night to day. He was not the same.
Can we
say that the conversion of Saul is typical of all who come to Christ in faith?
You may not have seen a bright light or heard the voice of the Lord, and your
testimony may not be as dramatic as Saul’s, but his conversion is a template
for all conversions.
There
are five stages of conversion in the Acts 9 account that we can learn from. Overall,
we will see that the most unlikely of sinners can be transformed by the
presence of Christ to be used as an instrument of his grace.
Who you think you are
We do not get a very nice picture of Saul when we first
read of him. Saul was present at the stoning of Stephen, guarding the cloaks of
the executioners (7:58). He approved of Stephen’s execution (8:1) and went “ravaging the church, and entering house
after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison”
(8:3).
That
word “ravaging” appears in only one other place, Psalm 80:13 where a wild boar
from the forest comes and utterly destroys a vineyard. Saul is being compared
to a “wild and ferocious beast;” he is mauling the believers.
By the
time we reach Acts 9 some time has passed, yet we read, “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder…” This man is crazed;
he is like a panting and snorting wild beast. Saul’s heart was filled with
hatred, his mind poisoned by prejudice, and obsessed by a raging fury.
Why is
this man so mad? When does an animal snort and spit and bear its teeth? Often
when it feels threatened.
Saul was
witness to the magnificent testimony and martyrdom of Stephen, servant of
Christ. It stung him, I think. How could someone die for this peasant upstart
who called himself a rabbi?
Saul was
zealous for the Jewish faith, the temple, the Law, and this sect “The Way” was
threatening to undo it all. According to Paul’s own testimony, he believed he
was in the right; his cause was just because he was defending Yahweh. Check out
his credentials in Phil. 3:5-6. He believed he was on the side of good. He was
good.
Why so
defensive then? His conscience was pricked by the death of Stephen. When your
lifestyle is threatened, when doubt creeps in, you fight that much harder. As
Queen Gertrude said in Hamlet, “The
lady doth protest too much, methinks.”[i]
This is
the age old argument of those who resist Christ: But I’m a good person. I love
my spouse. I love my family. I believe in equal rights. I stand up for social
justice. Sure I have my vices, but my sins are not any worse than hers or his.
Who you
think you are is a smokescreen; who you really are, whether you like it or not,
is a sinner in need of saving. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23).
Who Christ says you are
Saul had the official sanction of the high priest to go
to Damascus to root out and arrest the Jesus people there. Why did he need
these sanctions? Because when Saul chased the believers out of Jerusalem they
fled beyond the borders of Judea, 150 miles north to Syria.
Just
outside the city of Damascus a light from heaven arrests his progress. Saul
hears a voice call to him, “Saul, Saul,
why are you persecuting me?” Saul had no idea who spoke to him. His use of
the term “lord” is more out of respect than recognition. “Who are you, Lord?” The answer is stupendous, “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.” In that moment, Jesus
equated assault on the church as an assault on him personally.
Who
converts whom? Do we decide of our own will to believe in Jesus? Does God elect
us to salvation? This is the stuff of theological debates.
But look
at the account: Jesus takes the initiative. Jesus appears to Saul. Jesus
commands Saul what to do next. “But rise
and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” There is no
debate. Jesus does not explain the four spiritual laws to Saul. The presence of
the living Christ needed no explanation. Saul now saw himself as he truly was.
He was convicted by the person of Jesus Christ. He knew he was a sinner.
Do we
find Jesus? Or does Jesus find us? I think of the Good Shepherd who leaves the
99 to find the one. The shepherd searches the hills and valleys for his sheep
and finds it. The sheep is caught in a tangle of thistles – it can’t get loose
to save itself. All it can do is cry out. It may choose to keep quiet when the
shepherd comes by. But I believe that the shepherd knows where it is all along.
Jesus knows where you are; Jesus is closer than you think. In this sense
conversion is somewhat mutual. Christ finds you, but you have to admit you need
saving. You have to admit you are who Christ says you are.
Some
have debated what happened to Saul on the road. Did he have a stroke? Did he
suffer an epileptic seizure? Charles Spurgeon responded to this explanation
saying, “O blessed epilepsy! Would that every man in London could have epilepsy
like that.”
Who you want to be
Can you imagine such an encounter? Meeting Jesus? Wow, that
would be life changing.
Jesus
told Saul to enter the city. He’s blind, he’s stunned, yet obedient. In a
moment his life has been turned upside down. Saul is now a Christian and
subject to Christ’s command. “You are not your own; you are bought with a
price.” This is what conversion is: It is a change from thinking you can run
your own life, to acknowledging that the One who created life can run it
better, and will tell you what to do. Jesus is Lord and he has the right to do
that. Conversion is a revolutionary change of government that results in a
radical change in behavior.[ii]
If we
don’t realize that Christian faith is a revolution, our temptation will be to
try to add Christianity to what we already are, like adding a degree to your
title. It's not adding something; it's a total revolution of your life. But you are not a cup of vinegar (or 236.59 ml) any longer, now you are
the Master’s wine.
Saul went into the city with the help of his
companions. Then Saul sat eating nothing, drinking nothing, just praying for
three days. He contemplates this revolution and considers who he will be, what
it means to be “born again.”
In one
sense conversion is a process. C.S. Lewis in his book Surprised by Joy, shared his own conversion. He wrote, “You must picture me alone in my rooms at Magdalene
College, night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second
from my work the steady, unrelenting hand of Him who approached me, whom I so
desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared at last had come upon me. In
the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and
prayed and perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of
England, this prodigal son was brought in kicking and struggling, resentful
with my eyes darting just looking for a place to escape.”
Putting on Christ in faith is like putting on new clothes
that don’t quite feel right. But you grow into them. You want to grow into
them. You want what those new clothes represent. You don't want to take them off because you know you have found who you want to be.
Who you become in Christ
While it may be a process
on the one hand, conversion is also instantaneous. I want you to know that.
When you accepted Christ, you were converted, you became a new creation.
Ananias was summoned by the Lord to go to Saul. Ananias
resisted. He knew Saul’s reputation. He knew that Saul acted brutally against
the believers. Going to find Saul was like a Christian surrendering to ISIS. It
meant death. But the Lord insists and Ananias goes to Saul.
When Ananias finds Saul, five beautiful acts of grace
take place that symbolize Saul’s change of identity:
First,
Ananias finds Saul at the house of Judas and lays his hands on Saul. The laying on of hands symbolizes many
things in the Scriptures, healing, imparting of authority, and so on. Here, I
believe, Ananias showed tender acceptance of Saul wherein this physical touch
had a spiritual impact.
Second,
Ananias calls Saul “Brother,”
acknowledging that this former enemy of the church of Christ has now become
part of the family of God. That must have taken tremendous courage and grace
for Ananias to reach out in faith and accept Saul.
Third,
Ananias tells Saul that he was sent to restore Saul’s sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. In the
book of Acts we see this deliberate action of imparting the Spirit to impress
on us, the readers, the gifting of the Spirit in the life of the believer. When
we receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion we are filled with the
joy of new birth in Christ.
Fourth, at
that moment “immediately something like
scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight” (9:18). Saul believed
that he saw everything perfectly before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
He claimed to have a perfect view and understanding of God and righteousness,
but he was blind to God’s Son. Now, having met Jesus, he could really see. Like
the man born blind in John 9 said of Jesus, he didn’t know much about Christ
but “One thing I do know, that though I
was blind, now I see” (Jn 9:25).
Fifth, Saul was baptized upon his faith in Jesus. Baptism symbolizes the new birth and identifies us
with the living Christ. All who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are to be
baptized. It is the next natural step.
Who you are going to be
Believing in Christ begins
the journey; it is not the end goal. What convinced Ananias to go to Saul, this
enemy of the faith, was the Lord’s purpose in calling Saul. “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine
to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For
I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (9:16).
And the same is true of you. You were not called to
believe in Christ and then to simply go on your way. You were called for a
purpose, to be an instrument of God in whatever way pleases him. You are given
a new role, a service to perform in building his kingdom.
Sometimes it is hard to believe that someone who so
opposes Christianity could ever come to faith. And when they do we might be
skeptical, wondering if this is some joke. When Charles Colson came to faith in
Christ, people were skeptical. Colson had been Richard Nixon’s right hand man
in the White House; Colson did Nixon’s dirty work and was a snake in the grass
if there ever was one. But Colson met with a colleague named Tom Phillips who
was a disciple of Jesus. Colson was hoping to do business with Tom, but Tom
shared his faith in Jesus and read passages to him from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Colson thought this religious
stuff was pure hokum. But the reading from the chapter on pride in Lewis’ book
hit him hard. So did the prayer Tom prayed for Colson. Later that night, Colson
broke down in tears at the wheel of his car and offered a prayer of his own. As
he climbed into bed, he told his wife, Patty, that he thought he’d had a
conversion experience – but he didn’t know what that meant.
In time, this enemy of Christ became the founder of Prison Fellowship, a ministry that helps
prisoners come to Jesus. God loves to take the most unlikely people and
transform them into examples of grace. Listen to how Paul describes his
conversion in 1 Timothy 1:12-17 (read).
What is your conversion
story? When we give testimonies for baptism or membership, we often hear
biographies (where we were born, how we were raised). What we need to hear is
how Jesus has impacted your life so that you believed in him as the Son of God. And we need to hear how knowing Jesus Christ changes your worldview (how you look at the world, at life).
Perhaps your story is still a work in progress. You have
made a commitment but no one knows that you stand for Jesus. I implore you to
take a stand today. Declare today that you believe that what the Bible says
about Jesus is true and that you want your life to count for him.
AMEN
My story of conversion is much like John Wesley’s in
terms of the process.
John Wesley, the founder
of Methodism, was already an Anglican pastor, he had served as a missionary in
the United States; he was actually trying to be the best godly young minister
he could be but he was depressed because he had no sense of his own personal
salvation. And he told this to a Moravian friend of his who said to him,
“Here’s what you should do. Keep on preaching salvation. One day it will come
through to you.” Wesley had the privilege of leading a young prisoner to the
Lord Jesus Christ but he still had no peace about his own salvation. So he says
that on the morning of May 24, 1738 he got up at five in the morning, opened
his Bible, and read this. “There are given to us exceeding great and precious
promises, even that you should be partakers of the divine nature.” That night,
he went to a meeting at Aldersgate and there was a layman reading from Luther’s
commentary on the Romans and he was just reading the preface of this and as he
was reading this he was reading where Luther said that God works a change in
our hearts through faith in Christ and Wesley said as he was reading this, “I
felt my heart strangely warmed and I felt that I really did trust in Christ
alone for salvation and assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins.”
Wesley marked this as the time of his conversion.
How does my story parallel Wesley’s? I have known Christ
all my life due to parents who were faithful followers of our Lord. I gave
myself to Christ at a young age (I believe I was five years old). At that time
I had also declared to my parents that I wanted to be like Billy Graham when I
grew up.
As I grew older I drifted from that commitment and
declaration until a critical moment when I realized that the path I was
following would lead to a dark future. I didn’t do drugs; I was not
experimenting with alcohol; I simply saw how far from Christ I had grown. I
decided in my mid-teens to follow Christ.
From then on, God began showing me things, opening doors,
and teaching me about his Son through the Word of God. One incredible
contributing factor to my spiritual growth was time spent at Red Rock Bible
Camp. There I found others who loved the Lord and wanted to serve him. It was
at a fireside that I felt the Lord calling me to pastoral ministry. So I
mentioned out loud what I felt the Spirit telling me; no one responded. That
was not the point. God had called and I answered.
Years later while fully engaged in pastoral ministry, I
was now the lead pastor at the church in which I had trained. I was embittered
because of the treatment the Pastor, my mentor and friend, had been subjected
to. Now I was in his position as pastor of the church. I had been paired with a
young pastor in charge of youth whom I felt was more gifted for pastoral
ministry than myself. And I was still single, having failed at a number of
relationships. Overall, I felt none of the assurance of my calling with which
God had called me in years past. Like Wesley, there was a strong urging to “just
keep preaching.”
As I preached the Lord revealed himself to me. It is a
common saying and a good one that those who teach learn more than those who don’t.
I learned more than anyone who Jesus Christ was because I studied him and
proclaimed him. I confess that I am still learning. And the assurance I was
missing concerning God’s love for me came through a similar reading of Romans,
as Wesley came to understand, that God loved me when I was yet his enemy. How much
more does he love me now. And more so when we get to Romans 8:38 we find that
nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even our own doubts and
misgivings.
God continues to bless me and reveal himself to me. I
have a lovely wife and two wonderful children. And I continue to preach the
gospel of Jesus Christ, even when it hurts to do so. That blessed woundedness
is beyond explanation. You want to run from it and to it at the same time. The
love of Christ compels me.
D.G. Klassen
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