Epiphany 3, Conversion of St. Paul, Chinese New Year, January 25, 2004

Acts 9:1-19

The Blessings of Conversion

Introduction:

We were blessed this day to hear our new Chinese choir sing the praises of our Lord on the occasion of the celebration of the Chinese New Year. It is a blessing to see God doing a new thing among us and to share in the joy of seeing the fruit of that work. The choir was started just before Christmas as part of our Friday ESL Bible fellowship. Last Friday as we celebrated Chinese New Year, we had the opportunity to learn about ten blessings the Chinese traditionally seek at New Year’s. And we compared these with the blessings God promises to us.

What I would like to speak about today are some of these blessings God promises us: The blessing of something new, of cancelled debts, of forgiveness and of joy and happiness. I will talk about these blessings as they relate to our reading from Acts where we heard of the conversion of Saul, who became the Apostle Paul.

The Story:

Now, Saul was one of the best-educated Jews of his time. But before he became a Christian, he hated Jesus and those who followed and believed in Jesus. He would shut down their meetings and kill their leaders. But he was not content with disrupting the churches in Jerusalem and Israel. Now he had even obtained permission to go to another country, to the city of Damascus in Syria, so that he could arrest the Christians there and bring them to stand trial in Jerusalem.

The Bible describes Saul as "very angry" whose mind was filled with "murderous thoughts" towards Christians. But on his way to Damascus Saul has a dramatic encounter with Jesus who appears to him in a bright light. From that time on his life is radically changed. From being a destroyer of the Christian church he becomes the one whom God chooses to spread the Christian faith throughout the Roman Empire. As a sign of his conversion Saul changes his name to Paul--a result of his new commitment to following Jesus. “Paul” means “small”.

The Four Elements of Conversion:

In the account of Paul’s conversion we can see four important elements of conversion. The first element is an ENCOUNTER with Jesus. On the road to Damascus Saul experienced a bright burning light which left him blind. Scripture says that no one can see the Living God and so Saul is blinded by the light emanating from Jesus. He has come to face with the Truth, the Living Lord, and realizes that everything he had believed in and was doing was wrong. He realizes that his heart had been blind to the truth. This must have been a very humbling experience for such a great and proud man as Saul, to admit that he had been wrong. This is the second element of conversion: That once you encounter Jesus and realize what is Truth, you HUMBLE yourself and admit that you were wrong. You must let God clean you and change your way of life: To change your thinking, your speaking and your acting.

This requires you to trust Jesus to make you whole again. We see that Saul had that trust and faith. He humbly accepted the words of Jesus and asks for a person whom he considered an enemy, Ananias, a leader of the church in Damascus, to come and pray for him. Saul did not let his fear of what others might think of his new life stop him from doing what he knew he must do. And so he let himself be baptized into the name of Jesus. Jesus whom he hated so much had come to meet him in love. And that love changed his life.

This brings us to the third element in conversion: FELLOWSHIP. As a Christian Paul became part of a new family, the family of God. He began to serve the Christian church by encouraging them with the gift of knowledge God had given him. This brings us to the fourth element in conversion. Jesus gives each believer a new MISSION in life: In Paul’s case, his mission was to spread the message of God’s love throughout the Roman Empire. But that would not be easy. That is why Jesus said to Ananias, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name” (16). As any follower of Jesus, Paul would have a cross to bear. But his suffering would not be meaningless. It was part of accomplishing the mission Jesus had given him; a great and glorious mission. If it were not for Paul’s mission, most or all of us would not be here today. It is because of his work that the message of Jesus became established in the Roman Empire and was able to spread from there. In that way Paul was a tremendous blessing to us and our world.

The Conversion of Lin Yutang:

Since we heard of Paul’s conversion, I would like to share a more contemporary conversion story of another well-educated man. This is of Lin Yutang, born in China in 1895. Today Dr. Lin is hailed as "China and the world's most popular Chinese author ... he left the world with rich cultural works, making many people appreciate... a lot from Chinese culture". He was raised a Christian in China as his parents were Christians. However, when at age 20 he came to America as a student, he put behind him his childhood religion and became an atheist. Eventually he ended up teaching philosophy at Columbia University in New York City and he wrote many great textbooks on eastern religions like Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. So much had he turned his back on his early Christian faith that he even wrote a book at age 45 titled: “Why I am not a Christian.”

However, later in life he came back to Jesus. He said it happened while attending church with his wife. His wife had remained a Christian, a member of a church in New York City. Lin Yutang said that it was a quality of life on the part of the members of that church, and the preaching of its pastor that brought him back to faith. In his autobiography he talks about his spiritual journey and he wrote a book at age 65, “From Pagan to Christian.” And, God used this 65 year-old Chinese man for the next 15 years to minister to thousands of people in Asia and to be a blessing for them. This shows us that God never gives up on any of us, no matter how stubborn or how old we are.

Your Ongoing Conversion:

Having seen how Saul and Dr. Lin were converted let me ask you, “When were you converted to Christ? Did you have a conversion experience that you can talk about?” For most of us it did not happen as dramatically as Paul experienced it on the road to Damascus. But I would suggest that each of you who were baptized underwent a conversion no less dramatic than that of the Apostle Paul. In baptism, God expelled Satan and his demons and His Holy Spirit took up residence in you. The work Jesus finished on the cross was applied to each of us who were baptized into Christ and it is there that we received the blessings of conversion.

Conversion, however, is not just a one-time event. There are two kinds of conversion: Objective conversion is one-time and it happens when you are baptized. This is something God does to you. God only has to make you His child once just as Jesus had to die only once for your sin. However, because we all still have to deal with sin in our lives on a daily basis, there is another kind of conversion, one that is ongoing.

Each day, Luther tells us, I am to remember that I am baptized and that I am God’s child. Based upon that knowledge I must seek to have an ongoing encounter with Jesus through God’s word. I must allow it to mold and shape my life through daily confession (humble admission) of my sins and through regular communion (fellowship) with Him in prayer and in the Lord’s Supper. The goal of this ongoing conversion is that the result of God’s work in baptism may show outward evidence of its reality and bear good fruit in my life. This daily conversion will also ensure that I stay on track in fulfilling my mission in life: Of making His love known to those around me.

Conclusion: The Blessings of Conversion

Of all the blessings we may wish for the New Year, I would suggest that the greatest blessing any of us could receive is that of a conversion done by God in our lives. May God bless you with a real encounter with Himself, that you may know Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). May God also give you the grace to accept the truth so that you will allow it to change your life. Thirdly, may God also bless you with true happiness as you share in fellowship with Him, in being connected to Him through faith and to your fellow Christians in love. And finally, may God also bless you with a new purpose and mission in life—a mission of love that you can be proud of for the rest of eternity.

Aren’t these the greatest blessings that anyone could wish for in life? Well, God is offering these to you and may each of you be blessed with an experience of God that truly converts your life from meaninglessness to one of joy and purpose. Let me conclude with a final word from the apostle Paul explaining the greatest he blessing he desires to have in life: “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so eventually, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

May God grant us all to desire that blessing of conversion as much as Paul. Amen.

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