SERIES
Acts: Empowered to Extend
2018-02-25T12:00:00-06:00
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him:26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
If you watched any of the most recent Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, you no doubt saw some mini-documentaries on some of the athletes. On a practical level, these stories are informative introductions to athletes whose careers and sports most of us know little about. On a personal level, their stories are inspiring affirmations that the right blend of talent and training can lead to amazing accomplishments.
In the book of Acts, we encounter conversion stories that are more than informative or inspiring; they are surprising. While faith in Jesus Christ is always reasonable and the Holy Spirit is always at work, it should nevertheless always surprise us to see sinners transformed to saints by faith in Jesus Christ. Conversions are not just unlikely; they are, in every way, miraculous.
In the book of Acts, chapters 1-8, we find several surprising group conversion stories as God draws thousands of people to faith in Jesus Christ. We don't know all of the names, but we see the glorious disruption of Jerusalem as nearly a quarter of its citizens become Christians. And in Acts 8-10, with the gospel spreading beyond Jerusalem, we find three surprising personal conversion stories. There is the unnamed African financier, the Ethiopian eunuch, who comes to faith by reading Isaiah 53 and hearing Philip explain its fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Acts 8:26-40). There is the Roman general, Cornelius, who comes to faith by the work of an angel, a dream, and the witness of Peter (Acts 10:1-48). And in the middle, the most famous and most amazing personal conversion story in Acts: the story of Saul, the Jewish terrorist, who sees and hears Jesus Christ Himself, causing blind unbelief to become clear-sighted faith and life-changing mission (Acts 9:1-19). Together, these group conversion stories and personal conversion stories surprise us as readers and as participants in God's great work of redemption.
Living in the buckle of the Bible belt, we in Dallas may sometimes see our conversion stories as less surprising, less miraculous versions of the conversion stories in Acts. Perhaps we believe that the Holy Spirit need a miracle of lesser degree to save us, given the Christian mores of our culture and the general morality of our lives. Worse still, perhaps we believe that our conversion was somehow a result of being specially favored by God. But we have the same deceitful, debilitating, deadly sin nature as Saul and Cornelius. And we need the same atoning work of Jesus Christ, and the same regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Our conversion stories are just as surprising, and just as miraculous as the conversion stories in Acts.
Perhaps we could even push this point one step further: your conversion story should be to you the most surprising of any conversion story. Why? Because you should see and feel the weight of your sin and need for Jesus more than you see anyone else's sin and need for Jesus. Each of us should be able to say, "I am a log-eyed chief of sinners (Matthew 7:3-5; 1 Timothy 1:15)!" and "I am a prodigal heir of infinite grace (Luke 15:1-32; Ephesians 2:4-9)!" In the words of John Newton, our greatest wonder should be our own story of rescue: "If I ever reach heaven, I expect to find three wonders there. First, to meet some I had not though to see there. Second, to miss some I had expected to see there. And third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there."