Biblical Conversion

THE PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH

“Preach the Word”

Message Six: Biblical Conversion

Back in the last century, specifically the decade of the seventies before the arrival of the minivan people would buy an ordinary van and then they would take this plain ordinary van and they would transform it into whatever suited the owner’s personality and many times the owner’s bad taste!  The metal walls and the floor of the van would be covered with shag carpeting, and most of the time the preferred color was something like burnt orange!  Captain’s chairs would be installed and a killer stereo system would be cranking out the music of the day.  But the transformation usually didn’t stop with just the inside, oh no the outside would undergo a similar transformation as the inside did.  All sorts of animals and creatures would be painted on the van, or perhaps a nature scene or even some kind of hideous figure would be painted all over the van.  These vans were kinda like the Mystery Machine that Scooby Do and the gang rode around in.  What were those vans called?  They were called “conversion vans”.  Why?  Because they had undergone a major change.

Last week we examined the power of the Word of God to produce, to effect change in a person’s life.  There can be no life apart from the Word of God and there can be no fundamental change apart from the Word of God.

God’s goal in your redemption is to change you from what you are to what He has predestined you to be.  What has God pre-destined you to be?

"For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;” (Romans 8:29NASB95)

God’s design for you is to change you from what you are into what He wants you to be. 

I’ve used a particular word or phrase both today and last week that is key to our proper understanding.  That phrase is “fundamental change”.  What do I mean when I say that the change that takes place in us is something more than superficial self-generated change.  Like the vans of the seventies, a total transformation must take place. We must be converted. 

The questions before us this morning are, what is conversion and how does this same conversion take place? 

There are many things about Biblical Christianity that are grossly abused and mis-understood today.  Conversion is certainly one of those subjects.  I am probably asked more questions about conversion than I am about anything else.  So I think it would be beneficial to examine this subject from the Scriptures.  Let’s study the subject of conversion by simply asking and answering some basic questions.

Question one:

1.  IS CHANGE NECESSARY?

This seems to be an un-necessary question.  But many people are quick to say that they don’t need to change.  They have developed complacency, a fatal complacency with who and what they are.

Still others in our day of tolerance and political correctness would openly wonder if we have the right to confront people with their need to change.

Yet in spite of complacency and objections the Bible is crystal clear and steadfast that change is not only needed, change is a must!

Why is change a must?  Because of what we fundamentally are!  According to the Scriptures a person who has not experienced a biblical conversion they are…

            1.  Spiritually dead. 

"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,” (Ephesians 2:1NASB95)

Obviously Paul is writing to those in Ephesus who had already been converted.  But how does he characterize them before their conversion?  He said that they were dead in their trespasses and sins. 

A person who has not been converted needs to realize that

            2.  You are not a good person.

You may not be as bad as you could be, but you’re not as good as you need to be!  Listen to what Paul wrote to the Romans

"What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; “Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin."
(Romans 3:9-20NASB95)

Before conversion each and every person finds themselves characterized by the Scriptures as not being good, they are unrighteous, they do not seek after God, they do not do good, and to emphasize his point, Paul says “THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE!”

Do you know what these verses are, or at least what they should be?  They are a reality check!  These verses bring us face to face with the reality that we are in desperate need of change, a change that is only possible by the grace of God.  Another reality check is that God does not owe His grace to anyone! 

Grace by definition cannot be owed.  Something that is owed to a person is not grace it is a DEBT!  God does not owe us grace, what does He owe us?  He owes us justice!

2.  IS CHANGE REALLY POSSIBLE?

Hopefully at this point we agree that change is necessary.  That leads us to another question.  Is change really possible?

Most people do not believe that fundamental change is a realistic possibility.  Perhaps that belief is based upon their own attempts to change.  Or on their observations of others who have attempted to change and failed. 

The world for the most part has given up believing that real change is possible.  How do we know that?  We know that because the word relies on M & M’s.  Not the candy, but rather management and medication.  Do you have an anger problem?  Then let’s send you to anger management classes.  You drink too much?  Let’s try and get you to manage it.  Or if we can’t manage it, let’s medicate it. 

The reason the world has given up on believing real change is possible is because they are too narrow in their focus.  The world focuses only on the resources that are available to them in this physical world that they can see.  They deny that there is any outside help available to them.  Of course the outside help we are referring to is the help that God provides through His Spirit and His Word.  The gospel contains the promise of change for all who turn from their sins and turn to Christ; those who turn from sin to Christ experience a change in their very nature. 

3.  WHAT CHANGE IS NEEDED?

That’s a good question.  Just exactly what kind of change do we need to undergo?  Society and the self-help experts believe that the only change we need is to re-order our lives so that we can reach our potential.  Now we are beginning to focus in on the real issue.  The world’s desire, mankind’s desire is to reach whatever they may think their potential is, but in reality that is simply another expression of their self-centeredness.  It is this desire for everything to center on us that must be changed.  Why must it be changed?  Self-centered living always leads us away from God.  Only God –centered living brings us closer to God. 

Many today are more focused on discovering themselves, as if everything revolves around them.  But the Scriptures teach something that is totally opposite of that.  The Scriptures teach that we do not need to discover ourselves, rather we must turn from our self-centered living – which is an expression of our sinfulness and turn by faith to Christ.  The Scriptures teach that we must turn from our sin and turn to God.  It is only as we turn away from our sin and turn towards the Savior that the kind of change we need to have happen to us takes place.  We don’t need more of us, we need more of Him!

Mark Dever writes, “It is in this great change that we are saved.  We understand our state apart from this change to be dire, and so we call this change conversion, or salvation.  We call it being born again.”

4.  WHAT WILL THIS CHANGE INVOLVE?

Ø      Many people think that this change is simply mental acceptance. 

Therefore they think if they make a decision, or if they walk down an aisle, fill out a card, or pray the sinner’s prayer that those things represent a sufficient enough change.  The un-regenerate person only sees the need for slight change when in reality they need an extreme makeover!  So they make some minor adjustments.  They will start to attend church, they may become more involved at a church or they might begin to help out at a local charity. 

But that is not how the Bible describes the change we need to undergo.  That change that the Bible says that we need involves turning from our sins and turning to God. 

There are two aspects of Biblical conversion.

1.  There must be a change of heart towards God – that’s called REPENTANCE!

2.  There must be a belief and trust in Christ and His Word – that called FAITH!

Folks it is at this point that many, many people go wrong.  First of all there are those people who actually have been converted but they fail to realize it.  For instance a person who has been converted will because of their new nature be sensitive to the sin that they see in their lives.  And it is this sensitivity to sin that our enemy uses against them to condemn them and to put doubt in their minds.  The devil will make an accusation of how can you be a Christian look what you did!  Therefore they mistake their sensitivity to sin as proof that they haven’t been converted when in reality their sensitivity to sin is a work of God’s grace in their lives.  Listen if you struggle with sin that is because God’s grace is active in your life.  The unconverted person couldn’t care less about sin, and they don’t struggle against sin, they happily engage in it. 

But there is perhaps a much larger group of people that for me as a pastor really causes me much concern, and that is those people who think they have been converted when they haven’t been.  They mistake conversion with human action and ability.  Therefore if they go to church, they mistake that as a sign of conversion.  If they signed a card at some point committing their lives to Christ they mistake that as conversion.  If they walked an aisle at an emotional invitation they confuse that with conversion.  One of the fears that I have is this Christian sub-culture that we have created, and many adapt to this Christian sub-culture and they confuse that with conversion.  Conversion never happens at the hands of human ability.

Charles Spurgeon was walking down the street in London one day when a drunk man who was being held up by a lamppost yelled to Mr. Spurgeon, “Mr. Spurgeon do you remember me?”  Spurgeon replied that no he did not know the man.  The man shouted back to Spurgeon you should I’m one of your converts!  To which Spurgeon said to the man, you must be one of my converts because you certainly are not one of the Lord’s!

Churches are filled today with those who have learned to speak the Christian lingo; they may even listen to Christian music, not serious Christian music but the inane dribble that pours out of the Christian radio stations.  And unfortunately these people are usually ones who have just enough knowledge to do a lot of damage.  Because of their adaptation to this quasi Christianity they are convinced they are converted.  Pastor Spurgeon addressed this issue in one of his messages, he preached…

“They say they are saved, and they stick to it they are, and think it wicked to doubt it; but yet they have no reason to warrant their confidence.  There are those who are ready to be fully assured; there are others to whom it will be death to talk of it.  There is a great difference between presumption and full assurance.  Full assurance is reasonable: it is based on solid ground.  Presumption takes for granted, and with brazen face pronounces that to be its own which it has no right to whatsoever.  Beware; I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved.  If with thy heart thou dost trust in Jesus, then thou art saved; but if thou merely sayest, “I trust in Jesus” it doth not save thee.  If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying, “I am saved,” is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee.  Our prayer ought to be, “Oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed, with real faith, with real salvation, with the trust in Jesus that is the essential of faith; not with the conceit that begets credulity.  God preserve us from imaginary blessings!”

I mentioned several times in the past months that there is a growing concern, and many are sounding the alarms, that in one of the largest denominations in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention that far too many have been added to the membership of the church but they give little if any evidence that they have been truly converted, that they have been born again. 

Many times people’s claims to having been converted causes confusion among Christians and non-Christians.  Here is what I mean.  We mistake outward actions with internal transformation.  Because someone has started attending church, or they have begun to listen to Christian music, or they may give some money to the church we become confused.  Have they been converted or haven’t they been converted?  How should we address this problem?  What is that the Scriptures teach?  Is conversion merely external reformation or is it something more.  The Scriptures teach that conversion is much more than simply external reformation.  Jesus illustrated this for us in the way that He dealt with the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were outwardly religious people.  The Apostle Paul before his conversion was a Pharisee, and by his own account he kept the law as far as outward appearances go perfectly!  The Pharisees based their standing with God upon their outward actions.  And I think it is very interesting to take note of what Jesus said to them. 

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:27-28, NASB95)

Jesus was not at all impressed by their external appearance of righteousness.  Jesus even warned others that unless they possessed a righteousness that was different from the righteousness of the Pharisees that they would never experience genuine salvation.  Jesus said..

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20, NASB95)

Ø      Many think this change is simply MORAL RESOLVE

Deep down inside the conscience tells people that something is wrong; so many times they resolve to do better.  They put a lot of effort into trying to live more moral upstanding lives.  They may even go so far as to develop their own moral code, their own standards for living much like Benjamin Franklin did.  But moral resolve must never be mistaken for biblical conversion.

So if conversion is something other than mental acceptance and moral resolve what is it? 

Ø      It is total reliance on Christ! 

That means that we give up all attempts at self-justification.  We quit relying upon self-improvement.

Here is the problem that many people fail to realize and that is each one of us has a past pockmarked with sin that must be dealt with!  The change begins with realizing that we can never do enough to erase our past that is characterized by our sin!  We must repent of our sins and trust in Christ ALONE!

5.  HOW DOES THIS CHANGE HAPPEN?

Ø      WE DO NOTHING

Some people believe that we don’t have to do anything.  They have a mistaken and fatal belief that God is just going to automatically forgive everyone.  I call this the Mel Gibson syndrome.  The Passion of the Christ had much that was commendable in it, but it failed to provide the necessary context for the crucifixion and that is the problem of our sin and how each one of must personally responded to what Christ has done on the Cross. 

What did Jesus teach?  He taught that a great conversion needed to take place in our lives.  Whereby we turn from our sin and we turn to God.

Does this mean that we can simply exercise our wills and this conversion takes place? 

Ø      WE DO EVEYTHING

While some believe that we don’t have to do anything there are those who believe that we have to do everything in order to experience this great conversion.  Therefore they believe that they or anyone else can simply make a decision for Christ.  But the question is “Is the decision to come to Christ one that we can simply make on our own?”  If we believe that yes, anyone can make this decision at any time then should we pressure people into making this decision?  Because this decision is so serious shouldn’t we even manipulate them if necessary to get them to make this decision?  The answers to those questions and more like them is according to the Scriptures NO!  Unfortunately many well meaning Christians imagine conversion to be a kind of religious self-help.

What is the teaching of Scripture concerning conversion? 

v     God creates saving faith in us!

First and foremost the Scriptures teach that conversion is definitely not self-salvation.  We do not have the ability to affect the kind of change that is necessary in our lives.  A helpful analogy is that we all have terminal heart disease.  No one has the ability to replace their own heart.  You won’t begin to make the right choices until God first changes your heart.

We all have the ability to love and obey God, then why don’t we?  Because our hearts our not so inclined to do so.  The Scriptures describe the problem as having a hard heart.  But God has promised to give us a new heart so that we will love and obey Him.

“And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,"
(Ezekiel 11:19NASB95)

The New Testament terminology for God giving us a new heart is being born again.  Jesus said in John 3 

"Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3NASB95)

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6NASB95)

God commands you to repent and trust in Christ, but unless God gives you a new heart you cannot do as He commands you to do.  Jesus taught that we must act, but He also taught that we can only act if God’s actions are behind our actions.  Jesus’ teaching reflected the teaching of the Old Testament.  For example the Old Testament prophet Joel delivered a message of impending judgment.  But along with the pronouncement of judgment Joel offers words of hope.  "And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”   If that verse sounds familiar it should because the Apostle Paul quotes in Romans 10:13.  When Joel writes that “everyone who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” he has just written two chapters describing the judgment of God that was going to come on the nation of Israel because of their unbelief.  Now if they were about to be judged for their unbelief why would they then turn around and call on the name of the Lord for salvation?  Joel tells us why in the very same verse.  Let’s read the entire verse.  Joel 2:32

"And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. "
(Joel 2:32ESV)

 Why would unbelievers ever choose to call on the Lord for salvation?  What does Joel say?  “and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls”.  Those who call upon the Lord are those that Lord has first called unto Himself.   

How does the Lord call survivors to Himself?  Through His Word, and that is exactly what I’ve been doing this morning.  God could have chosen to call the survivors to Himself in some other way, but He has chosen to call them through His Word. 

I close with a quote from Mark Dever “To change as you need to change may seem beyond you.  But the good news is, it’s not beyond God.  You need only to heed the words of Jesus; “Repent and believe the good news.”