The Difference Between First and Second Conversion

Holy day! We had 157 here this morning, which is our largest number we've had in years for Holy Day, so that's very commendable. Glad you're all able to make it here. And we also had a very generous offering. I'd like to thank you very much for that. Just over $12,000, so that's just great and I appreciate your generosity toward the work. It'll take me just a minute to get set up here.

For some reason, my computer is trying to override me and log into the system here at Ramada. And, as usual, the computer is smarter than I am and I haven't figured out how to make it stop doing that. But today I thought I would start this afternoon's service with a little exercise to see how many of you are awake. That's a challenge for all of us who speak in the afternoon. I'm going to read two sections of Scripture and I want you to see if you can catch what these two incidents have in common, specifically some words that Jesus Christ said. Let's go first to Matthew 4, verses 18 through 20. This is early in Christ's ministry when he is calling his first disciples. And it says here, The second incident is recorded years later after the end of Christ's earthly ministry, after he has been resurrected, raised from the dead. And this incident takes place then. Several years have passed. Jesus now appears to several of the apostles there at the Sea of Galilee. And here's what he says, notice here, what he says to Peter. And again, look for some words that are in common with the passage we just read here.

Jesus here says to Peter, But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you, and carry you where you do not wish. This he spoke, signifying by what death Peter would glorify God. And when Jesus had spoken this, he said to him, Follow me. Now, what was the phrase that we see in common between these two statements? Anybody? Follow me. Hey, you're awake. That's great. I appreciate that. Good. Follow me. Follow me. They both say follow me. Follow me is a phrase that actually appears 19 times in the gospels, nearly all spoken by Jesus Christ. Actually, possibly all of them are spoken by Jesus Christ. And it's most often we see it when Jesus says to someone, Follow me. He tells people that. What did that mean as Jesus used that phrase? Follow me.

It means become my disciple, become my tell-me-ed, one of my followers, one of my committed, dedicated followers. It means learn what I learn, know what I know, do what I do, walk as I walk. It means become like me in every aspect of your life, which is what being a disciple means, as we've been covering repeatedly in our studies of the gospels there. But what is the context of these two incidents where Jesus tells Peter, Follow me? Because it's in the context of these two incidents that we're going to see a significant difference in Peter that leads to some very important lessons for us today in our calling and our conversion. In the first incident, we find Peter being called and asked to follow Jesus Christ. Again, it was early in Christ's ministry when he is choosing his disciples. And Peter's response to that calling, that invitation, was very simple. He laid down his nets.

Thank you, Kevin.

Okay. Yeah, sometimes this adapter does funny things here.

Keep you awake. Somebody just signal me if the color gets weird on there, on there again. So again, in the first incident, we find Peter being asked, invited by Jesus Christ, to follow him. And his response was very simple. He answered that call by following Christ.

He hung up his fishing nets, left his job as a fisherman, and accepted Christ's invitation. And then the second time Christ gives him this invitation, again, is about three years later. A lot has transpired during that period of time. Since Christ first spoke those words to Peter, follow me. And now, as he did several years earlier, Peter does follow Christ. He accepts that invitation again. But what we're going to see today is that the nature and the depth of Peter's response were very different. Between the first time he answered that invitation and the second time. So we do have two times when Peter answers, accepts the invitation to follow Christ. Both were invitations to become.

One of his talmideam, one of his dedicated followers. The invitation was the same. But Peter was quite different between that first invitation and the second. A lot of things had happened in those three years. A lot of water had gone under the bridge, as the saying goes. Peter's outward response was the same. He followed Christ. But the nature and the depth of his commitment was very different. Let's state this a different way.

We have, in a sense, in the life of Peter, two conversions. Two conversions. There was a first conversion, which is early in Christ's ministry. And then there was a second, quite different, profoundly deeper second conversion. In both cases, Peter followed Christ. But the nature of those two commitments on Peter's behalf was very different.

Today what we'll do in the sermon is take a look at and compare those two conversions. And in the process, I think we'll get a much better idea of what true conversion is all about. Today we are here to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, one of God's holy days. I like to think of Pentecost to sum it up in one word. I would say it's the feast, or God's feast, that celebrates conversion.

It celebrates conversion. It commemorates, first of all, the giving of God's law to Israel at Mount Sinai after the Exodus. And that law shows us the way to become converted. Psalm 19, which we sing in our hymnals occasionally, says the law of God is a perfect law for it converts the soul. Very wonderful phrase there that tells us about the purpose of God's law.

It is to convert us. It is to change our thinking. And then later, as we heard this morning in Acts 2, we see that Pentecost celebrates God giving his Holy Spirit to mankind, specifically to the early church there. And we know that it is God's Spirit that allows us to become converted and to develop the thoughts and the mind and the character of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. And that again is why I think of Pentecost as a celebration of conversion. Because it commemorates those two things. It commemorates the giving of God's law and the giving of God's Spirit, both of them wonderful gifts that God has given to us.

And it also teaches us about what God's Spirit should produce in our lives, again, as we heard this morning, as a result of allowing that Spirit to work within us and to change us. Because conversion is all about change. That's what the word conversion means. If you convert something, you change it from one state to a different state. And that's what conversion is all about for all of us. It is God changing us through his Spirit from one state to a different state, internally changing us from the inside out. We are to change from one thing to something else through God's Spirit working within us and through having a relationship with Jesus Christ by learning what it means to truly follow him as one of his disciples.

And that's why today I want to talk about Peter's conversion and this concept of second conversion that he experienced. Because there are important lessons there that can help us better understand what conversion is all about.

And if you'd like a title for today's sermon, it is the difference between first and second conversion. The difference between first and second conversion. Now before I go any further, let me make clear that these terms, first conversion and second conversion, are not found in the Bible. It's not like I'm trying to introduce some new truth or something like that. I'm not. I'm just using these terms as a simple way to understand some concepts here. To contrast the two, I'm using them to illustrate a deeper concept of what happens in our lives as Christians early on in our calling compared to a change, a deeper change, that should happen later on in our lives as Christians. I'm using this term to describe what should happen and indeed what must happen if we are to truly become converted as God wants us to be, as He expects us to be, as He requires us to be. For some, it's a crossroads. It may come five years, 10 years, 20, 30 years down the road after we first been called and converted, after our initial decision to be baptized. For some, it's more of a gradual change, a gradual realization, a gradual commitment there. But eventually we reach a point, you might say, a crossroads in our lives where we have to face some hard questions. Hard questions like, do I still believe in and am I fully committed to these teachings, to this way of life, and to this church?

By church, I mean the Church of God, not specifically one organization. And we come to the point where we realize, knowing what I know now, knowing what I have been through in my life, having seen what I've seen and knowing what I will probably yet go through, in the remainder of my life, am I still committed to this way of life, to this set of teachings, and to this church? This is an issue, if we think back on it, we can probably all think of a number of people who have been affected in God's Church over the years. There comes a time when we go through a crisis and we find ourselves asking this question, do I still believe in these teachings? Am I still committed to this way of life, to this church? Knowing what I know now, having gone through what I've gone through, having seen what I have seen and will yet likely see, am I still committed? Am I fully committed? Am I in this for the long haul, no matter what?

No matter what happens. You might call this, for another term we might identify with, a Christian's midlife crisis. A Christian's midlife crisis, because it seems that for many people, this type of spiritual crisis that many people experience tends to coincide with midlife.

It wasn't until the last century that psychologists and others put a label of midlife crisis on a phenomenon that's existed for a long time. That phenomenon is real. Where people in a midlife crisis, somebody typically begins to look at their life, his life or her life, when they approach or get into middle age. They look at their lives and they begin to ask themselves questions like, am I happy? Am I satisfied with my life? Am I satisfied with where I am and where I'm going? And is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?

And as Christians, we can ask ourselves a lot of the same questions regarding our spiritual life.

A person in a midlife crisis might look across the room at the person that they've been married to for 20 or 30 years and ask, if I had to do it over again, would I marry the same person?

Be quiet, Connie. Would I still marry the same person? Do I want to stay in this marriage?

And people in a midlife crisis will often do some really stupid things.

They will. Some people will abandon their marriage. Some people will change their career. Some will abandon their family. Like I say, do really stupid things because of this midlife crisis. But it can also be a time, spiritually, if we go through a crisis like that, when we really rededicate ourselves to this calling, to this set of teachings, to this way of life, to this church. As Christians, many of us, having been in the church for a number of years, can begin wondering and have second thoughts about these things. But as in the case of a midlife crisis, if we resolve those issues, if we renew our commitment, our dedication, that can then set the foundation for many more productive years, many years of growth in our Christian lives. And this experience is what I'm generally calling second conversion. When we go through this, when we rededicate and renew our lives, our commitment to this truth, to this set of teachings, to this way of life, to this church. And again, the Bible, let me make clear, doesn't use this term second conversion. I'm just using it to describe this concept, this deeper level of commitment that God wants from us. And as we'll see with the life of the Apostle Peter, and another example or two I'll toss in here, I think the Bible does show us clearly that people do experience this. If they go through a crisis or a lifetime of experience from which the result is what we can call second conversion. One example of this, I think we see quite clearly, is found with an individual by the name of Job. And let's turn and look at that. Job had...we'll turn to Job 42 verses 1 through 6. And Job had undoubtedly made a commitment much earlier in his life than the incidents that we read about in the book of Job. Won't go through all of those, but Job 1, you can read it yourself, it begins describing how Job was a blameless and upright man, an individual who feared God. Very complimentary terms. Any of us would like to have those terms applied to us. An individual who did his best to obey God. But then, as we read further in the book of Job, it describes some incredibly painful, torturous trials that Job went through. How long these crises in Job's life went were not told. It had to be, in my reading of it, at least several months, perhaps up to several years. It wasn't like this all takes place over the period of a week or two, something like that. And then, toward the end of the book, we see that Job, well, throughout the book, we see Job reaching these crises in his life. Questioning God, questioning his basic beliefs about God and about himself and about his relationship with his Creator.

He came to a point where he had to answer the question, knowing what I know now, knowing what I've been through, do I still believe in this set of teachings, in this way of life, in this church? And after having been shown a few things by God, God directly intervenes to set Job straight. We come to the point we're going to read here in Job 42. And Job here says, beginning in verse 1 of Job 42, that Job answered the Eternal and said, I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Just as Job, speaking of himself, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things that were too wonderful for me, which I did not know. And skipping down to verse 5, Job says, directly addressing God, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now I see things differently. Now my eye sees you, and therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. What does it sound like? Does it sound like somebody who experienced a deep realization in his life? Sure does to me. Job came to a deeper level of commitment in understanding that he simply did not have before. And again, this experience is what I would call, for lack of a better term, a second conversion for Job. Again, he already knew God, he was already obedient, righteous, blameless before God. And yet now at the end of the book, he comes to say, now I really see you as you are. And I repent, and I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. It was a point where Job reexamined where he stood, what his relationship with his Creator was like, what he believed, and what he was going to do with his life from that point forward. And how did the story end up? He comes out of it a more dedicated, a more stronger, a better man, a more committed person with a stronger relationship with his Creator as a result of this midlife crisis that he went through. Peter, getting back to the story of Peter, was given that same invitation to follow Jesus Christ at two different points in his life. The first time that Jesus invited Peter to follow him, Peter was young, he was eager, he was enthusiastic and idealistic. But the second time, a lot had changed. A lot had happened. Peter was in many ways a different person. And the response that Peter gave to that invitation that second time was much deeper. He would now stop and reflect much more seriously on what that calling involved, what it meant, and what it meant to him personally. In his first conversion, Peter followed Christ for three and a half years, three, three and a half years, and at the end of that time, what happened? What happened? He denied his rabbi, his master, his Lord, not once but three times.

When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, he ran away into the dark, gave up on his calling, went back to his previous trade, his occupation as a fisherman, gave it all up. But the second time, Peter became a very different person. And as we see in Acts 2, which again was touched on earlier today, he loudly and boldly proclaimed Jesus Christ as the true Messiah, as the Son of God, despite being ridiculed, being persecuted, ultimately being executed for that belief. Which conversion mattered?

It's pretty evident. What about us? How does that apply to us? What can we learn from Peter's example? What about your life? What about your response to follow Christ, to be his disciple? We've all been given the same invitation that Peter was given on those two occasions. We've all been given the invitation to follow Christ, to become a Talmud, a disciple, one who wants to not just know what the teacher knows, but to become like the teacher, the Master, a rabbi, and Lord Jesus Christ in every way. Nearly every adult in here has responded to that invitation and been baptized. And we made that commitment, and that commitment was sincere. It was real. It was indeed for us, if we truly repent it. And we're baptized and had the laying out of hands. It was a new birth. It was a new beginning. It was a new beginning. But now where are we? Now we're 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years down the road from that decision, from that original commitment. We're at a different point in our lives. Our perspectives are different. Our experiences have reshaped our thinking. What we've seen and what we've heard and what we experienced over those several decades has changed our outlook in different ways. Has it changed it for the better? Has it changed it in other ways that are maybe not so good? And at some point along the way, many of us have come to a crossroads. Maybe some of us have come to that crossroads several times in our lives. We've come to a point where we've had to ask ourselves, do I still believe in this set of teachings? Am I still committed to this way of life? To this way of life? To the set of beliefs? To this church? So what can we learn then from Peter's experience? I said earlier that this invitation to follow Christ was the same at the beginning of the Gospels as at the end, but that Peter was a very different person. The nature and the depth of his response was different. What does that mean and what can we learn from that regarding the level of our commitment, the depth of our response to that invitation? Let's look at several contrasts between the first and second conversion of Peter and then I think we'll begin to understand better what I'm saying and to better understand the change that God wants to see in us as represented by this day, this celebration of conversion, this day of Pentecost. So what are some of the differences and what can that teach us? The first difference I'd like to point out here is that Peter's first conversion was emotional. Emotional and filled with eager anticipation, but his second conversion was quiet and calm and sober. Let's consider what the atmosphere was in the society and the culture of the day when when Peter was first called, first received that invitation. At the time Jesus was about to appear, there was an air of expectation in society and the nation of Judea as a whole. There was an expectation that the Messiah was to appear. We see that thread repeated throughout the Gospels there. Peter had grown up hearing stories, reading from from the Scriptures, hearing in the synagogue the prophecies of a great leader who was going to come and who was going to deliver the people, who was going to deliver the nations and throw off the Romans and there were constant rumors and and discussion and hope and expectation of this deliverer who is going to appear and is going to cast off the Romans. And what about Peter? How did he come to first hear about Jesus Christ? If you remember the story, he heard about it from his brother Andrew. His brother Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptizer, cousin of Jesus Christ, and Andrew was present there on the day that Jesus came to John the Baptizer to be baptized.

He was present there when John called Jesus the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And Andrew then went and spent the entire day with Jesus. And when the day was over, Andrew went to Peter and what did he say? He said, we have found the Messiah! I found him! I've seen him with my own eyes! So there's no doubt there's a lot of eager anticipation and excitement. And Andrew, when he goes to tell Peter that he's found the Messiah, he's here at last! He's here, our delivery is here. And so this was the context of Peter's first invitation to follow Christ and Peter's first conversion. There's again definitely an excitement, this anticipation, that the end is near, the end of the evil, cruel Roman Empire, the time when the Kingdom, as they viewed it, is going to be restored to Judea. And they're going to have Judean rulers and the evil pagan Gentiles are going to be thrown out. This is what is in Peter's mind when he thinks of the Messiah there, this leader who would throw off the Romans. So this is considerably different, however, from what is in Peter's mind the second time that Jesus tells him, follow me. What is different? The second time Peter's conquering hero, Jesus the Messiah, wasn't marching on Jerusalem to take the city from the Romans. Instead, as hero, Jesus is talking about leaving them and going to the Father. What did that mean? Peter and the others didn't understand when the Kingdom was going to come. They certainly knew it was coming. They certainly expected it to come shortly, but they were heading out into unfamiliar territory, uncharted territory, with no visible conquering leader or hero to lead them. Peter had seen his own people, the Jews, who were expecting a Messiah reject that Messiah. He had seen his own people crucify the Messiah. He'd seen one of the most trusted disciples, Judas, become part of a plot and a conspiracy that led to the death of the Messiah. And now Christ is talking about leaving them and sending them out into the world. Peter is confused. What does this mean?

Where are they going? Where are we supposed to go? What's happening here?

He's confused, but Peter had changed. This time, when he responds to Christ's invitation to follow him, it's not a matter of being carried away by the excitement and the anticipation that the end is at hand. And Jesus is going to throw out the Romans. Now, in his second conversion, it is calm. It is a quiet and sober decision to follow Jesus.

For those of you who came into the church, as most of us did several decades ago, think back to that calling and your mindset when you were first called. We came into the church with an air of excitement that the end was near. We thought that the kingdom of God is about to appear, and we're going to be a part of this kingdom that is just right around the corner.

Isn't that how it felt? My family was called into the church in 1970. I was a sophomore in high school, and I remember being afraid to go to school in January of 1972 because I thought the church was going to flee to a place of safety, and I'd be stuck in algebra class without a hall pass.

It's pretty confusing. And just like in Peter's time, there was for us that sense that the end of the age is near, that the kingdom of God is about to appear, and that it's all just right around the corner. But as in the case of Peter, the script didn't really play out that way.

It played out differently. Have you ever been halfway through a mystery novel or a mystery show or something like that, and you think you've got it all figured out and know how it's going to play out, and suddenly there's a new twist in there, and nothing is as it seems. And that's the way it was like for us. We find ourselves more confused than ever about where things are headed, and now it's going to end. And sometimes it's that way in the church. We thought we had it all figured out. Thought we knew all the answers. Thought we had the script down. But somewhere along the way, it took a different turn. And many of those who responded to that calling several decades ago couldn't deal with that and gave up on their commitment and left their calling.

Many remained faithful and died in the faith.

Many spouses for some of you loved ones, and the kingdom didn't come in their lifetime as they expected and as we hoped. Didn't happen that way. Time has marched forward. See some out in the audience who were children who grew up thinking they were going to live over into the millennium as children. And now they have children of their own. Time has marched on, and somewhere along the way, somewhere along the journey like Peter, we need a much deeper level of conversion, of commitment. A commitment that isn't based on anticipation of something that we think is right around the corner. It's just about to happen. Maybe a desire to save our own skin from what we know from prophecy is going to happen, but we need a commitment. It's deliberate. It's calm. It's quiet.

It's deep. And that commitment should be that this set of teachings, this way of life, this church is where I want to be. It's where I should be, and it's where I will stay, no matter what. We need to come to the firm realization and a solid commitment that whether or not Christ comes for a hundred years or a thousand years, that this truth that we will hold on to this truth, and we will remain a part of the body. And though we may not in our physical lifetime see Jesus Christ return coming in the clouds, but we are still going to remain firmly committed to the set of teachings, to this way of life, and to this church.

And I'm not saying we should ever allow ourselves to get in the time frame of our Lord delays His coming. I'm not saying that at all. I do think that coming is soon from what we see. But we can't stay at an immature level of commitment where we need the excitement of that coming kingdom to motivate us all the time. Because as we've seen, that level of excitement, if indeed the Lord does delay His coming, can wear off. And we end up like so many that we've seen over the years who drifted away. Because things didn't play out the way they thought they would. That was the nature of Peter's first conversion. And I think you can see that it was a conversion that came up short. Very short. It was a conversion that ended up again with Peter abaditing his master by running away three times, running away into the nine, then denying him three times when things didn't turn out as he expected. It was a conversion that ended up being shallow and ultimately useless because it did not change him. It did not convert him.

And that leads us to a second contrast between first and second conversion.

And that is that...

Excuse me, here, I've got to slide off. And that second contrast is that Peter's first conversion was somewhat naive. And the second one was mature and realistic. Let's think about some of the incidents in Peter's life that illustrate this. Peter was impetuous, bold, but naive in a lot of ways. Over in Matthew 14, we won't turn there, but it's the story about...and we're familiar with it, we won't review it, but there's the storm. The disciples are out on the boat on the Sea of Galilee, and a storm comes up. And it's pretty frightening. And Jesus is over on the shore, and the storm hits, and the disciples are scared of what is happening. They think they're going to drown, and then they see Jesus walking like what they think because human beings can't walk on water, so they think it's a spirit out there walking on water. And Peter calls out and he says, is it you, master? And Jesus says, yes, it is me. And Peter says, come then, me to come to you, walking on the water. And Peter starts walking out on the water. And you know the story. He's confident. He's self-assured, thinking this is easy. But it doesn't last very long, does it? Because he looks at the waves, and he sees the wind, and he starts to sink. Then you have to give Peter credit where credit is due. You don't see any of the other disciples stepping out of the boat, just Peter. So you've got to give him credit there. None of the others got their feet wet. But you have to hand it to Peter. But his flaw was he just didn't realize how tough he was going to be. Jesus Christ, when he came, was a very charismatic man, a very charismatic leader. When he appeared on the scene, people are naturally drawn to him. Not because he used tricks or knew the tricks of the trade to get people to listen to him and following him. No, not at all. Actually, if anything, it was just the opposite. They sense, they realize that in Jesus Christ, here was somebody who was real, somebody who was sincere, somebody who was believable, somebody who spoke to authority and spoke with authority. And in addition to all of that, he performs miracles, miracles that drew people, drew crowds wanting to be healed, wanting their loved ones to be healed. Miracles that cause people to go to their relatives and friends and say, come and listen to what this man has to say. We never heard a man speak like this. Christ was moving.

He was engaging. He was saying something fresh, something different. He was challenging the authorities of his day. He was challenging the establishment. He was challenging the conventional thinking of people. And all of these things did stir up people and caused thousands of people to follow him. And Peter wasn't immune to all of that. Peter was human, as we are human. Peter was a person who was quite emotional, whose emotions ran deep. And sometimes his emotions got the best of him and caused him to be impetuous and to act and to speak before he really thought things through. But was Peter any different from what you and I were in the first years of our calling? Were we any different from those crowds that flocked to Jesus Christ? What did Jesus do when the people flocked to him? We see this again and again. He would say things conveying the thought of, don't get caught up in me emotionally. Don't get caught up in this emotionally, what I'm doing. Stop and think about what my message is all about. If you're going to commit to following me to be my disciple, think about it. Make sure you know what you're getting into. Make sure it's an informed decision on your part. And Jesus is regularly, we see in the Gospels, cautioning people about that. We see that large crowds start to follow him. And on more than one occasion, he will turn to them and say, look, you're excited about following me. But I tell you, if you're not willing to leave your father and your mother and everything else, you cannot be my disciple. One example of this, I'll just paraphrase it here, Luke 14, 28 through 31, Christ talks about counting the cost here. And he says, which of you, intending to build a tower, doesn't sit down first and count the cost? Whether you're going to be able to finish what you started here. And you don't go off to war until you've thought it through. And then, when you've really thought about it seriously, when you've really thought through what it's all about, then you act, then you decide, then you make your commitment. But don't do this, shall we? Don't do it based on emotion. Don't do it based on a miracle. Do it because you've thought it through and counted the cost. On another occasion, Luke 9, verses 57 and 58, it says that while he's walking along, that people come up to him and one of them says, here, verse 57, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.

I will follow you. What does that mean? What he's saying is, I want to be your disciple.

Can I be one of your talmadin? Can I follow you? Will you accept me as one of your disciples? And what does Jesus say? Dump some cold water on the guy. He says, foxes have holes and birds of hair have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He was asking, is this what you want for yourself?

Are you willing to do this? Have you really thought this through?

Have you really counted the cost? Did Christ exploit people's emotions when they got caught up in the miracles and the teaching and the excitement? No. He didn't. If anything, again, he threw cold water in their face. Matthew 16, verse 24. People were shocked when he told them, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. He told them they'd better count the cost if they're going to be his disciple. He told them, do you want to follow me? There's that phrase again, follow me.

You want to be my disciple? Consider what it's going to cost. Are you ready? Are you willing to take up the cross? And this was the custom. Jesus wasn't the only one it happened to. When the Romans condemned somebody to death by crucifixion, the condemned person had to take his instrument of execution outside the city walls, the beam that he's going to be nailed to and die on. And people had seen that. They'd seen condemned criminals on the way to crucifixion. And they could identify with that. And Christ says, if anyone desires to come after me, to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

So Jesus says, you want to follow me? Are you ready to pay the price? If you want to follow me, you'd better be prepared to take up the cross that you're going to die on, because that's what the cost is to follow me. Peter didn't grasp all of this. Apparently didn't grasp very much of it at all at the time, because later on, not long before Christ is crucified, Matthew 26, verses 31 and 33, Jesus looks at all the disciples and he says, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. And Peter answered and said to him, even if all of these guys are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Peter's saying, I'll never stumble because of you, Lord. Not me! Yeah, all these other guys may do it, but not me, Lord. Not me. I'm with you all the way.

Was Peter insincere? No, not at all. Was he superficial? No, not at all. He was just naive. He was just naive. He really wasn't aware of how difficult the task was going to be that he was called to. And I think this is true of all of us as well. We don't really realize how difficult it is. There's a certain amount of naiveté in all of us when we're called into the church. There's this excitement, and there should be. It's exciting. It's recently had the blessing of counseling one of our younger adults for baptism. And this person is just so excited and enthusiastic about it. And that is how we should approach it. It's exciting to have the opportunity for new life, to receive God's Spirit, to change and convert us as we're celebrating on this day. It's exciting. It's wonderful to be forgiven of every sin you've ever committed, and to come up and to be a new person in every way. So it is exciting, but then there's that reality that sets in. It comes crashing down on us when we realize that our job is not going to be easy. And we do indeed reach a crossroads where we need a deeper conversion, a deeper commitment. Again, think back to when you first were called into the church, when you were first called, converted, baptized. We thought it was going to be really easy, didn't we? We thought we were going to throw off the burden of human nature that we have. We think we're going to put on the clothing of righteousness. We're going to wrap ourselves in the robes of holiness. And we're going to walk the straight and narrow. We're going to shed the old person and do away with him or her. And we're positive about it. We were excited, not optimistic. And then we found out it's not that easy. We find out that it's a struggle. We find that after we're baptized, the old human nature didn't magically go away. We find out that Satan didn't flee.

And as we came up out of the waters of baptism, he's right there.

Right there. And we find that many years after baptism, some of the old habits, the old weaknesses, the old flaws in our character are still around.

We find out that the old person that we left there in the waters of baptism is, as the saying goes, a really good swimmer. And they don't want to stay under that water.

And they're still swimming away. Haven't drowned yet. But I don't misunderstand. When we were baptized, when we had hands laid on us, we did receive God's Spirit if we had truly repented, if we had hands laid on us by one of God's ministers. And no doubt we have made positive changes. No doubt there are encouraging things we can look back on. But the point I'm making is this, and that is just that it hasn't been easy. And it's not easy. If it were easier, as the saying goes, everybody would do it.

But it's a narrow path. It's a difficult path. It's not the broad way that leads to destruction. Overcoming and growing spiritually requires far more endurance, far more persistence, far more perseverance, far more just plain hard work than we ever thought it would. And many people who never go beyond this first conversion, reach those walls, reach those trials, and what happens? They drop out. It's like the parable of the sower and the seed. You can go back and read that, how some of the seed starts off really good. And then the sun comes down and the weeds start growing up and choke it off, and they're lost. They give up on the calling.

They simply fall by the wayside. People become worn down by battling, with fighting their own nature, with fighting off problems, maybe at work, job stresses, trying to find a job, maybe problems with family, with friends, marital problems, any number of things, and they just give up. And what happens then? Well, their life gets easier. It does, because the pressure is off.

The pressure to change. The pressure to become what God wants of us. These people simply aren't prepared for the long haul. And they fall by the wayside. And this has happened again time and time again in God's church. Many who once set their hand to the plow started out on this journey, turned around and looked back, like Lot's wife, looked back to her previous life.

And they drifted back into the world. And the second conversion comes when we rid ourselves of the naivete of what this is all about. We rid ourselves of the naivete of the perfection of the church and the perfection of the people in the church. The perfection of the people sitting around you here. The perfection of the ministry and all the rest. But we can still step back and realize that God is still in it. God is still working with us. We're a work in progress. God is still working with us in spite of our imperfections. And we step back and we realize that this is still the truth. This is still the right set of teachings. This is still the right way of life. And this is still the right church. And then with a firm determination and a full realization of what we're doing, we make that commitment that we are in this for keeps. Not a naive, emotional conversion like Peter's first conversion where he said, not me, Lord, I'll never leave you. A few hours before he denied his master three times. But instead, it's a firm commitment, an immovable commitment that no matter how weary we become, no matter what sacrifices we have to make, no matter what happens, we're not going to abandon it. We're not going to turn away from the course. We're in this for the long haul. And we will see it through the end as we heard in the sermon head. All things are possible through Jesus Christ and through God our Father. We're not about to give up. We know that God has promised to never leave us, to never forsake us, and that we have God's Spirit and Jesus Christ living again within us to give us the help that we need. We can do it. We can do it. And that's the commitment we have to come to. And that leads us to the third and final point. And that is that Peter's first conversion was external, and the second was internal. The first was external, and the second is internal. Now, what does that mean? Well, when Peter responded to that first invitation to follow Christ, again, he didn't begin to realize what was being required of him. He hung up his nets, turned away from his fishing business, and he marched off to follow Jesus Christ. He had embarked on, in his mind, a physical campaign, a physical struggle that was going to lead to the physical overthrow of the physical Roman Empire and the physical re-establishment of a kingdom, an independent kingdom. There in Judah, the restoration of the physical nation of Israel to glory. Or so he thought. But he thought wrong. To be sure, he was going to observe the Sabbath. He was going to continue with the Holy Days. He was not going to eat unclean foods. He was going to commit continue with the requirements of God's law. None of that was in question. But what Peter didn't grasp is that what he would be battling was not going to be a Roman soldier with his sword and his shield and his armor, but it was going to be a battle against his own human nature. He didn't realize it was going to be a battle against the prince of the power of the air, of Satan and his demons. He was called to a battle, but the enemy was very different from anything he'd ever imagined before, from what he thought it would be. And not long before Peter's second conversion, Christ made that very distinctly plain to Peter. Just before he was going to be crucified, we read about this in Luke 22.31, just before he's going to be crucified, what does Christ say to Peter? He says, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat.

Now imagine what a shock that must have been to Peter. Peter didn't realize that's what he was getting into when he signed up for this outfit three years earlier. Had no idea he was going into a head-to-head struggle with Satan, because at that time he viewed it as something physical, something external, not the spiritual warfare. He wasn't prepared for that. It wasn't what he had in mind earlier when he agreed and accepted Christ's invitation to follow him. Let's notice also Matthew 16 verses 21 through 23. What was Peter's orientation? Is it physical, external, or was it internal and spiritual? Notice this. From that time, again, this is shortly before Christ's crucifixion, from that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and must be killed and be raised the third day. Notice what Peter's reaction is when Christ tells the disciples this. This is when Peter took Jesus' side and began to rebuke him, which is unheard of. A disciple just doesn't do that to his rabbi. But Peter took Christ's side, began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall not happen to you. And notice Christ's words back to Peter. But Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan! Wow! Wow! Get behind me, Satan!

That's what Christ says to Peter. You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Wow! What a rebuke!

Wow! In other words, what Christ is saying is, Peter, you're caught up in the physical. You just don't get it. You just don't get it. You're still focused on me wanting to proclaim myself a king and raise up an army and throw the Romans out. But, Peter, this isn't what it's all about. It's a very different battle. And the same thing is true of all of us sitting here today.

I know it was with me and only the very, very limited grasp of the spiritual warfare that I was about to get involved in. I took years for that to sink in. I just simply wasn't spiritually enough, but sure enough, to understand that when I was first baptized. Enough to make a beginning, yes, as we all are, but certainly not what I would come to understand years later.

The kind of battle we're called to wage. And a lot of people just simply don't make the connection. It's easy to think of conversion as, in terms of external things, in terms of physical things, what day we worship on, which holy days or holidays we celebrate, whether Christmas and Easter or God's holy days. It's easy to think of conversion as a matter of whether you tithe, how much you tithe, who you write your check out to. It's easy to think of conversion in terms of how you were baptized, whether you were dipped or sprinkled or immersed, and who is doing the baptism. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those things don't mean anything. Those things have to be there. Absolutely have to be there. And are part of it. But what I'm saying is that conversion is much, much more than the physical things we do. And it hits people rather hard when they realize that those things are not really what makes for conversion. They're not. What makes for conversion is coming to grips with the raw ugliness of our human nature. It's coming to grips with the raw reality of our own selfishness, of our own self-centeredness, of our pride, of our pettiness, our vanity, our self-justification, of coming to grips with our own lusts, our own greed, our own deceitfulness, our resentments, our taking offense easily at others, our sulking, our laziness, our lethargy, our materialism. These are the things we're called to battle against.

And it is those people, and it is only those people, who come to realize that this is where the battle is really fought, who have really come to the point of second conversion.

The difference between the external and the internal is a lot like the difference between a softball and a balloon. They look a lot alike from out there. You have to get fairly close to tell the difference between the two of them. The softball has substance to it.

It's hard. It's solid. It's got a core there that it's built around, that it's constructed around. It's solid again, but a balloon is very different. A balloon has the size, the shape of a softball, looks like a softball, looks like the same thing from back where you're sitting there.

So from a distance, it's hard to tell because they look so much alike. But with a balloon, we know that what is a balloon really? Well, it's a very thin layer that surrounds nothing, surrounds pot air, or cold air there. And we know that under some circumstances, what's going to happen? You know, the balloon has the the size, the shape, the form, the appearance on the outside. It looks the same as the softball there, but when the pressure gets too hard, when things get tough, when things aren't going right, what happens to the balloon?

It's nothing left. Nothing left. There's nothing in it. It had no substance. It had no core.

It wasn't firm. It wasn't solid. There was nothing of lasting value to it.

And there's nothing left. Nothing left. And that's all that's left of the person who never moves beyond the external. The person who never really has grasped that conversion is the process of becoming a different person. A more loving person, a more giving person, a person who is committed, a person who sacrifices, a person who stays involved until the end of who gives himself or herself to build the body, to edify the body, who throws off petty hurts and offenses and keeps moving forward toward the goal of God's kingdom, no matter what.

This is what the real battle is all about. And Peter finally came to realize that, and he was a much better, a much different, a much more profound person because of it.

And he gave up everything, including ultimately his own life, for the way of life that he knew was right. He moved beyond the external conversion to become converted internally.

He no longer had a naive, immature approach, but he had become more realistic, more mature about what was involved, about the struggle that would lie ahead and what he would have to face day after day after day. He no longer had an excitable, emotional approach to things, but he made a calm and quiet and deliberate decision to stick with it no matter what. What about us?

What about us? Have we reached that level of conversion, that level of commitment to this set of teachings, to this way of life, to this church that we can say, as Paul said over in Romans 8, verses 35 through 39, from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

And this is the kind of absolute, unshakeable, firm commitment that God wants to see from us as a result of his Spirit working within us. This is the kind of deep conversion that he wants to see in us. This is what Christ's command to follow me means. It's what it's all about, that we will follow him anywhere, anytime, any place, no matter what. This is what it means to be a committed disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's follow him.