THOUGHTS ON CONVERSION Part 2

What is conversion? What makes for a true convert to Christ? What does it mean to be saved? Born again? What is does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What part does God play and what part does man play in the salvation process? The answers to these questions is what I began discussing last week. Now this week I continue.

John Piper describes conversion in this way Christian conversion is the act or process of being changed (without coercion but through our own volition) into a person who believes and treasures Jesus Christ, his saving work, and his promises above everything else, including all that we were believing or treasuring before conversion.

CONVERSION IS A CONDITION OF SALVATION AND A MIRACLE OF GOD
This teaching on the nature and origin of conversion clarifies two things. One is the sense in which conversion is a condition for salvation. Continuous confusion is caused at this point by failing to define salvation precisely.

If salvation refers to new birth, conversion is not a condition of it. New birth comes first and enables the repentance and faith of conversion. Before new birth we are dead, and dead men don't meet conditions. Regeneration is totally unconditional. It owes solely to the free grace of God. "It depends not on will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16). We get no credit. He gets all the glory.

But if salvation refers to justification, there is one clear condition we must faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:28; 4:4-5; 5:1). And if salvation refers to future deliverance from the wrath of God at the judgment and our entrance eternal life, then not only does the New Testament say we must "believe," so that this faith must be so real that it produces the fruit of obedience. There must be faith and the fruit of faith. "Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17; cf. v. 26). "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcism counts for anything, but only faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6). "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14).

When we cry, "What must I do to be saved?" the answer depends on what asking: how to be born again, how to he justified, or how to he finally welcomed into heaven. When we say that the answer is "Become a follower of Jesus Christ," we mean God's work in new birth, our faith in Christ, and the work God in our lives by faith to help us obey Christ. This is the fullest meaning of conversion.

Which brings us to the second thing that has become clear from our discussion of conversion, understood as the coming into being of a new nature (a Christian Hedonist) that will obey Christ, is no mere human decision. It is a human decision-but, oh, so much more! Repentant faith (or believing repentance based on an awesome miracle performed by the sovereign God. It is the breadth of a new creature in Christ. Saving faith has in it various elements. The nature of these elements makes faith a very powerful thing that produces changes in our lives. Unless we understand this, the array of conditions for present and final salvation in the Testament will be utterly perplexing.

Consider the following partial list.

What must I do to be saved?
The answer in Acts 16:31 is "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
The answer in John 1:12 is that we must receive Christ: "To all who receive him ... he gave the right to become children of God."
The answer in Acts 3:19 is "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your may be blotted out."
The answer in Hebrews 5:9 is obedience to Christ. Christ "became source of eternal salvation to all who obey him."

Jesus Himself answered the question in a variety of ways. For example in Matthew 18:3 He said that childlikeness is the condition for salvation: "Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter kingdom of heaven."

In Mark 8:34-35 the condition is self-denial: "If anyone would come me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For who would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and gospel's will save it."

In Matthew 10:37, Jesus lays down the condition of loving Him more anyone else: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worth me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” The same thing is expressed in 1 Corinthians 16:22: "If anyone has no love the Lord, let him be accursed." And in Luke 14:33 the condition for salvation is that we be free from love of our possessions: "Any one of you who does not renounce all that he cannot be my disciple."

These are just some of the conditions that the New Testament says we are meet in order to be saved in the fullest and final sense. We must believe in Jesus and receive Him and turn from our sin and obey Him and humble ours like little children and love Him more than we love our family, our possessions or our own life. This is what it means to be converted to Christ. This alone is of life everlasting.

But what is it that holds all these conditions together and gives them unity? And what keeps them from becoming a way of earning salvation by works? One answer is the awesome reality of saving faith-trusting in the word of God, the promises of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, not ourselves. This is the unifying key that not only unites us to Christ for justification, empowers us for sanctification. Yes, but what is it about saving faith that unifies and changes so much of our lives?

CONVERSION LEADS TO THE THE CREATION OF A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST
Jesus pointed to the answer in the little parable of Matthew 13:44: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in [literally, from] his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." This parable describes how someone is converted and brought into the kingdom of heaven. This is a pretty straight forward description of conversion. The arrival of King Jesus in a life is like discovering ten million dollars in a bucket in a field. And you know the laws that given the field, you get the bucket. You think, “I have somehow, someway got to get this field before anybody else gets it.” So he covers it over and then we see a phrase that will radically change how you understand conversion: “and from or for joy he sold everything he had.”

Do you see what happens? He exercises self denial. He sells everything he had, everything. What emotions do you feel as you sell all your goods? Would it make sense for you to weep and mourn, “Oh, my Lexus! Oh, my in-home theater! Oh, my condo! Oh, my Dell Duo Core Centrino!” No. What emotions did this man feel as he sold all his goods? “Ok, that’s sold! All I need is $2,000 more. There goes the Lexus! Great, take it for $15,000 under blue book, I’ve got the price now! Take all that’s left for a dollar; that home theater system might as well be junk – I’m running off to buy that field!” Sell the wedding ring, sell the sea doo, sell the car, sell the computer, sell the surfboards, and sell the books, Bill. Sell everything. Nothing compares to the value of the field. All that this man once held dear, all he once thought important, all that he once valued, all that he once had worked so hard to attain – all this he now considers rubbish compared to the tremendous worth of the treasure in the field. So he pursued his greatest joy by selling all his possessions and buying the field. When someone becomes a Christian, he values Jesus Christ more than everything else. Jesus Christ is the great treasure, and the joy of knowing Him far outweighs the cost of any sacrifice, of any loss.

Brothers and sisters, too be saved is to have your eyes open to the value of Jesus. Paul says it clearly in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them (it means from getting saved) from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

People get saved when the light goes on in their hearts. What does it mean to be saved? It means the devil is punched by the Lord and eyes go open and the foolishness of the cross becomes wisdom and power. You were looking at Jesus and He was boring. Why would I want to go worship Him? I have the surf, television, golf, fishing, booze, money, girls, you know, the things of life. That’s life, you Christians are so boring. Then suddenly, late at night, light floods the heart and the cross is majestic. It was the sweetest thing a kid ever heard at the age of 22.

The kingdom of heaven is the abode of the King. The longing to be there is not the longing for heavenly real estate, but for camaraderie with the King. The treasure in the field is the fellowship of God in Christ. I conclude from this parable that we must be deeply converted in order to enter the kingdom of heaven and that we are converted when Christ becomes Treasure Chest of holy joy-a crucified and risen Savior who pardons all provides all our righteousness, and becomes in His own fellowship our pleasure.

Jonathan Edwards reminds us “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.”

Pastor Bill

THOUGHTS ON CONVERSION

The Christian community throws around many words and sayings in regards to salvation like “Believer, born again, faith, repent, once saved always saved, backslider, give your life to Jesus, come forward and give Jesus a chance, Christian, confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, or say the sinners prayer”. But what really constitutes a Christian? What makes for a true convert to Christ? What does it mean to be saved? Born again? What is does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What part does God play and what part does man play in the salvation process? Today many biblical terms have lost their meaning in the light of 21st century misunderstandings. We live in a day surrounded by unconverted people outside the church and within the church who say and think that they believe in Jesus.

WHAT IS CONVERSION?
Conversion is used in the Bible only once, in Acts 15:3, Paul and Barnabas "passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers." This conversion involved repentance and faith, as the other reports in Acts show.
For example, in Acts 11:18 the apostles respond to Peter's testimony about Gentile conversions like this: "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life." And in Acts 14:27, Paul and Barnabas report the conversion of the Gentiles by saying that "God ...had opened a door of faith to the ¬Gentiles."

Conversion, then, is repentance (turning from sin and unbelief) and faith (trusting in Christ alone for salvation). They are really two sides of the same coin. One side is tails-turn tail on the fruits of unbelief. The other side is heads-head straight for Jesus and trust His promises. You can't have the one without the other any more than you can face two ways at once or serve two masters.

This means that saving faith in Christ always involves a profound change of heart. It is not merely agreement with the truth of a doctrine. Satan agrees with true doctrine (James 2:19). Saving faith is far deeper and more pervasive than that.

CONVERSION IS A GIFT OF GOD

We get an inkling of something awesome and stupendous behind repentance and faith when we see hints in the book of Acts that conversion is the gift of God. "God has granted repentance that leads to life" (11:18). "God exalted [Christ] at his right hand ...to give repentance to Israel" (5:31). God "opened a door of faith to the Gentiles" (14:27). "The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul" (16:14).

We will never fully appreciate what a deep and awesome thing conversion is until we own up to the fact that it is a miracle. It is a gift of God. The truth is that we not only sin, but we also are sinful-blind, hard, dead, and unable to submit to the law of God. And so when we hear the gospel, we will never respond positively unless God performs the miracle of regeneration. We are all radically corrupt and utterly unable to respond to the gospel left to ourselves.

FAITH IS OUR ACT, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE ONLY BECAUSE OF GOD’S ACT

Repentance and faith are our work. But we will not repent and believe unless God first does His work to overcome our hard and rebellious hearts. This divine work is called regeneration or the New Birth. Our work is called conversion. Conversion does indeed include an act of will by which we renounce sin and submit ourselves to the authority of Christ and put our hope and trust in Him. We are responsible to do this and will be condemned if we don't. But just as clearly, the Bible teaches that, owing to our hard heart and willful blindness and spiritual insensitivity, we cannot do this. We must first experience the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

The scriptures promised long ago that God would devote Himself to this work in order to create for Himself a faithful people:
"And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of our offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with a11 your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." (Deuteronomy 30:6)
"I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD), and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart." (Jeremiah 24:7)
"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God." (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
These great promises from the Old Testament describe a work of God that changes a heart of stone into a heart of flesh and causes people to "know" and we" "desire" and "obey" God. Without this spiritual heart transplant, people will not know and love and obey God. This prior work of God is what we mean by regeneration or the New Birth.

WE ARE CONVERTED (CALLED) THE WAY JESUS CALLED LAZARUS: DEATH TO LIFE

In the New Testament, wee see that God is clearly active, creating converts to Himself by calling them out of darkness and enabling them to believe the gospel and walk the light. The Bible requires that we speak of God’s call in at least two distinct senses. One is the general or external call that goes out in preaching the gospel. Everyone who hears the gospel is called in this sense. But God calls in another sense to some who hear the gospel. This is called God’s internal or effective call. It is the call changes a person’s heart so that faith is secured. It’s like the call of Lazarus , “Lazarus come forth!” It creates what it demands. The key passage is 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, "But we preach Christ crucified (General call), to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called (Effective call), both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen" in Matthew 22:14. Among the "many" or the “generally called” there is a group who are “called” in such a way that they are enabled to esteem the gospel as wisdom and power. The change caused by the effective calling is none other than the new birth or regeneration!

John teaches most clearly that regeneration precedes and enables faith. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. (1 John 5:1) The verb tenses make John's intention unmistakable: "Everyone who goes on believing [pisteuon, present, continuous action] that Jesus is the Chris been born [gennesanta, perfect, completed action with abiding effects] of God." Faith is the evidence of new birth, not the cause of it. This is consistent John's whole epistle (cf. 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:2-3; 4:7).

Since faith and repentance are possible only because of the regenerating work of God, both are called the gift of God:
"Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.... By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:5, 8).
"It has been granted(graced or gifted) to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake" (Philippians 1:29).
"The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge o the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

To be continued...

WHEN JESUS PRAYED FOR YOU! Part 2

We learned that the first part of God’s divine love is that He loves us in a way that enables us to see His glory. But that is only half of what Jesus wants in these final, climactic verses of his prayer. I just said we were really made for seeing and cherishing His glory. What he wants is that we not only see His glory, we cherish it, savor it, relish it, delight in it, treasure it, and love it. In short that we would delight in Him; that we treasure Him; and that we would love Him.

Jonathan Edwards writes:
“When God is loved aright, He is loved for His excellency, the beauty of His nature.” What does it mean to love Him? That Jesus would truly be as precious to us as He is to the Father. That we would love Him with a “peculiar love”. So, consider verse 26, the very last verse:
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Let us look at this carefully. Jesus' request to God is that He desires the Father’s love for the Son to be in us in order for us to love Him. Have you ever thought that Jesus wants you to love Him not merely with your love but with love that the Father has for Him? My love is weak and inconsistent. My love is conditional and moody. My love is selfish and prejudiced. My love is limited and finite. My love is human and sinful. Therefore, my love for Him is totally inadequate in loving Him, the God of glory; therefore, it is inadequate and in reality, impossible, for loving others with His love. That is why Jesus asks the Father for his love to be given to us. God makes it possible for me, a sinner, to love such a worthy, glorious being like God in a manner of love that He so richly and worthily deserves! In short, Jesus is praying for the Father to love us in order to help us love Him by making much of him!

How is this possible? First, because of the knowledge of the God of love. "I have made known unto them thy name, and will make it known." We cannot love a God whom we do not know: a measure of knowledge is needful to affection. However lovely God may be, a man blind of soul cannot perceive him, and therefore is not touched by his loveliness. Only when the eyes are opened to behold the loveliness of God will the heart go out towards God who is so desirable an object for the affections. Brethren, we must know in order to believe; we must know in order to hope; and we must especially know in order to love. Hence, the great desirableness that you should know the Lord of love (1 John 4:8, 16) and His great love which surpasses knowledge.
“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19).

You cannot give in return love which you have never known. Some of us in our lives have been deprived of love. Perhaps we have never known much love in our earthly relationships. Love for us has been as the song goes “the Elusive Butterfly”. In reality, we all are deprived of God’s love! Not because of Him but because we have never received His love due to our sinfulness. Without the inflow of love, no wonder there has been no outflow of love. So until the love of God has come into your heart, and you have been made a partaker of it, you cannot rejoice in it or return it.

Second, it is possible because the knowledge here spoken of is knowledge which Jesus gave them. “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known.” O beloved, it is not knowledge that you and I pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love to the Father: it is knowledge given us by Christ through his Spirit. It is not knowledge communicated by the preacher alone which will bless you; for however much he may be taught of God himself, he cannot preach to the heart unless the blessed Spirit of God comes and takes of the things that are spoken, and reveals them and makes them manifest to each individual heart, so that in consequence it knows the Lord.

This knowledge, dear friends, comes to us gradually. The text indicates this. “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known." As if, though they knew the Father, there was far more to know and the Lord Jesus was resolved to teach them more and more and more and more.

Third, it is possible because of the new birth. Becoming a Christian means getting a new nature which is given by God. Practically speaking this means that God comes into our lives by the Holy Spirit and begins to give us new affections, new emotions, namely the emotions and affections of God: the love that the Father has for the Son! It is the presence of God the Spirit in our lives that causes us to love Jesus with the love of God the Father. Romans 5:5 says that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”. Indeed the Holy Spirit may be viewed as the love of God in a Person. To be ruled by the Spirit is to be ruled by a divine love for Jesus. Jesus is simply praying that we may be filled with the Spirit who is the divine Person who expresses the love that the Father has for the Son. Thus we will be filled with the very love with which the Father loves the Son. The result is divine love flowing into your soul and pouring out of your life to God and others. No wonder why Paul speaks of love as the fruit of the indwelling Spirit (Galatians 5:22).

So what kind of love does Jesus desire for you to have? A peculiar love. “The love with which you have loved me.” This is a kind of love whereby Jesus is as precious, as valuable, to us as He is to the Father in Heaven. There is no greater love in the entire universe than the love flowing between the Father and the Son in the holy Trinity. No love is more perfect, more powerful, more intense, more continuous, more pure, and more full of delight in the beloved, than the love God the Father has for the Son. It is energy of joy that makes atom bombs look like firecrackers. Oh, how the Father delights in the Son! Oh, how precious the Son is to the Father! "This is my beloved Son, with whom 1 am well pleased," God said at Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:17). "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him," God said at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5). Jesus is the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Peter 2:4). In the entire universe none is more precious to God the Father than His Son, Jesus Christ. He is loved with perfect, infinite, divine love. That is how precious He should be to us.

Oh how much does the Father love the Son! Is not this a wonderful thing,—that God's own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love that You have loved Me may be in them.”

All true love, such as the Father delights in and accepts at our hands, is nothing but his own love, which has come streaming down from his own heart into our renewed minds. Jesus' longing and goal is that we see his glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son. And he doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son – that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.

Oh what grace He gives us. And I say it is his grace, because the best thing he has to give us is his love and joy. "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:11; see also 17:13). It would not be fully gracious of Jesus simply to increase my love and joy to its final limit and then leave me short of his.

My capacities for love and joy are very confined. So Christ not only offers himself as the divine object of my joy, but pours his capacity for love and joy into me, so that I can love and enjoy him with the very love and joy of God. This is glory, and this is grace. We will love and enjoy the Son of God with the very love and enjoyment of his Father. God's delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them and therefore our loving them will never die.

This is what Jesus prays for us: "Father, show them my glory and give them the very delight in me that you have in me." May we see Christ with the eyes of God and savor Christ with the heart of God. The love of God is so working as to change you so that you enjoy making much of him forever and ever and ever. And that's the end of your quest. Do you want this? Do you desire to be loved by God for God? That is the essence of heaven. That is the gift Christ came to purchase for sinners at the cost of his death in our place.

When Karl Barth, the famed German theologian, visited the United States, a student in seminary supposedly asked, “Dr. Barth, what is the single most important truth you have learned as a theologian?” Barth replied, “the most important thing that I have learned is this: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” May we never forget not only that Jesus loves us but also the peculiar and precious way that He loves us: to be free to love Him the way the Father loves Him. There is no greater gift than this.

A PRAYER:
Father, please answer Your Son's prayer for us even now as much as we can bear that the love with which You loved Him may be in us and He in us. We confess that our love for Christ is not all He deserves. We long to love Him more. More purely. More intensely. More consistently. More joyfully. For Your own sake, Father, and for the glory of Your Son, satisfy us with His glory. In His name we pray. Amen.