Acts 3:11-20
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s, astounded. 12 And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: "Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16 And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
17 "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.
I want to talk to you about the difference between what it means to be a truly counter-cultural person, and why being truly counter cultural requires a conversion experience.
There is an increasing number of persons saying that they feel dislocated—disconnection from the world they live in. This is also true in our churches. Kids are leaving in droves. Adults are wandering around looking (in many cases) for the magic church. Some think the cure is to remake our culture. Jesus made a very different truth claim. He said (in so many words) that the problem of dislocation is culturally induced, and that the answer is conversion—to get ouselves permantly located on the Rock of our salvation.
In his book THE NEXT CHRISTIANS, author Gabe Lyons comments on culture saying
“Cultures are like clouds. They materialize as by products of the prevailing conditions. They reveal the world’s influential currents as they move across the landscape. And while you’re inside them, it’s hard to see what’s really going on around you.”
In other words living in the culture is like the amateur pilot who flies into a cloud. He loses all sense of orientation to the horizon, doesn’t trust his instruments, and while believing he is flying level he is in fact flying his plane straight into a fatal stall or roll, or directly into the ground. That’s what happened to John Kennedy Jr.. He was in thick weather, became disoriented and without meaning to, flew his plane into the sea and all aboard died.
So if you get the idea of disorientation in flight, then you will understand how the Gospel asserts that the cultural cloud we live in is the very reason why we don’t know what is really going or where we fit in. We have lost our orientation to what is fixed and immovable.
Think about what is happening on Wall Street even a I post these notes to Sermon Central. There is a number of people there that you and I would have very little in common with when it comes to what they are thinking, but it is probably not safe to assume that every person there is an anarchist or Marxist.
Occasionally a person is interviewed who is there for the simple reason that they see the greed and crony-capitalism going on between the political and financial systems and they feel not only frustrated and helplessness, but for some it borders on hopelessness as regards where they fit in the “American Dream”.
Let me acknowledge that there is plenty of greed in Washington and on Wall Street, but if the earth opened up and swallowed both Washington and Wall Street up would the problem of greed go away?
What Jesus said in many different ways is this’ greed is rooted in every human heart, that it must be blotted out through individual conversion. We must be rescued from the cultural cloud that sin (greed), creates. “be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” Acts 3:19
If Jesus’ truth claim is accurate, that means those occupying Wall Street are not exempt from the very greed they are protesting. It means that those who believe that salvation will come by destroying the establishment and setting up a new system (socialism for example) would themselves become the new establishment—the latest cultural cloud. And then what? They would prove what history has seen proved time and time again, that the Scriptures are accurate in saying Romans 3:22 … For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ESV
NO DISTICNTION...
No REAL distinction between their greed and the greed of Wall Street. Even the most righteous indignation they can muster over the greed of others will not save them (or us) from the greed in our own hearts. They and we can deny this “No Distinction” clause, but only at the cost of honesty.
Our self-salvation inventions can range from religion to revolution, from violence to vagrancy, from isolation to organized rebellion, but there is no salvation in the creation of a new cultural cloud. Why? Because we carry in our own hearts the seeds of horrific sin and greed. In fact our efforts at self-salvation no matter what form they take only thicken the cloud and the sense of disorientation.
So let me tell you how the truth claims of the Gospel of Christ differ from any other form of salvation.
Only the Gospel offers a salvation that is not of this world. It is not of human origin. It was sent from and still exists outside the cultural clouds—outside of ourselves.
It came through Jesus (God the Son) who was sent on a mission from God the Father. Gospel salvation has been sent from another place and came to us in the form of a virgin born child.
Jesus’ was very plain spoken in saying that the universal problem of man is that sin (and that is what greed is—one manifestation of sin), …sin has released in all of us a toxic blindness that leads finally to death—a death that cannot be avoided.
But then He made a very simple announcement about a radically different kind of salvation. “You are dying and I have come to absorb your poison and take your place.” And that He did that on the cross—dying as our substitute.
But the thing that makes the Gospel different from any human kind of religion ever invented by man is that Jesus then rose from death on the third day as Conqueror in Chief, and now from His place of victory says; “Come to me. Rely on me, trust me and I will take away your sin and share my victory and my eternal life with you.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin , so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ESV
And when we ask for His help here is what we get; not rules to keep but a new kind of life to live, we get a conversion experience that makes us good—perfect even in the sight of God.
Listen how C.S. Lewis talks about this new life in his book Mere Christianity.
“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or- if they think there is not- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”
Here is what Jesus made abundantly clear to Peter, and Peter wants to make clear to us that Acts 10:34… God is no respecter of persons”
That means that we are not to separate Politicians from Protesters or Bankers from Brats, Jews from Gentiles, when it comes to whom we are present the truth claims of the Jesus. It is as Paul said; Romans 3:22 … For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ESV
All must be saved the same way, not by inventing salvation, or by earning the salvation offered by God through Christ, but simply by the power of conversion, by humbly opening their heart and mind up to a salvation that has been accomplished for us by another.
How will you know that the Gospel offer is open to you? You will know because God actually causes you to want it. You don’t make that desire happen—not from inside the cloud. It is a desire that is initiated by God because He already loves you. That’s how much the Gospel is not an invention of man. God provides salvation through Jesus, and then initiates in you the desire to have it.
It’s all Him.
And the hope that comes along with the gospel, it cannot be extinguished by failing political policies or financial systems or the passing cultural clouds. The hope that comes from beliving the Gospel is described by Pete as a living hope. 1 Peter 1:3 …God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ ESV
It is not a hope freshly stoked up by a good day or year in the stock market or by getting our political party in office, or any such thing. (Of course we do want righteous men in places of leadership.) True, the Gospel (as it lives in us) doesn’t make us immune from hearing bad news or even getting bad news. It is just that our hope is in Christ and we are not afraid of the ups and downs of life. News comes and goes, but the Gospel believing man or woman "...will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD. (Psalms 112:7 NIV)
A truly counter-cultural life is not based on efforts or a change of style, but upon a radical change in world view brought about by conversion.
In other words we become counter cultural not by conscious effort but by nature. When God does that for you you have an ever increasing sense that you are very connected to the world around you.
