Order of Salvation - 5. Conversion

So if you flip over to the back of the prayer sheet, you'll see some notes that hopefully will help you follow along. Tonight we are continuing our study of the Ordo Salutis, or Order of Salvation. In previous weeks we've looked at election, we've talked about the gospel call, so both general calling and effectual calling. Then last time we talked about regeneration. So that's really key to how the spirit makes his calling effectual. I define regeneration as an inward work of the spirit producing a new heart and new spiritual life. So in other words, a result of regeneration is that we really hear the gospel for the first time and we understand the gospel and our heart is now receptive to that gospel. And that brings us this week to the next item in the Ordo Salutis, which is conversion. You can see on your notes that I've defined conversion as when we turn away from sin and trust in Christ. Conversion has two essential elements. There's repentance and there's faith. And converting is really this complete turning, kind of turning around, turning from sin and to Christ. Something else to note about this is conversion is something that we're active in. So we talked about regeneration and effectual calling. Well, those are things God does. We're passive. That happens to us. But conversion is something we participate in. We actively exercise repentance and faith. also just note again that a lot of things happen at this point that you know you can see on the way I've laid out order of salvation at conversion well there's a lot of things or items listed there because there's a lot of things that sort of happen all at once right at the start of the Christian life there's effectual calling and regeneration and you know conversion itself including repentance, and faith. There's justification and adoption. And all of this are things that happen simultaneously, right? So there's no time gap. But there is a logical order here. For example, we say we're justified by faith, right? We wouldn't say we have faith by justification. because the justification is what depends on faith. Our faith causes justification through union with Christ. Well, the same is true when we think of regeneration and then conversion. It's not that there's a time gap between it, where we regenerate and then time goes by and then later we repent and believe. No, it's simultaneous. But, conversion is caused by and logically depends on regeneration. Because it's that change of heart that produces the willingness for us to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith as we're called to. So, that was just a little bit of introduction that I hope is helpful to kind of orient us. But next, I want to ask you all a question, which is, what is the relationship between repentance and faith? You know, does one come first and then the other? Or, you know, how do we think about that? And is it possible to have one without the other? What do you guys think about the relationship of repentance and faith? Yep? I would say since repentance is coming from your sin and turning to Christ, you have to have faith in Christ to want to turn to Him. Yeah. There has to be an object to turn to. Your faith is what gives you that object. Good, okay. Yeah, so it's really hard to even conceive. Repentance is sort of turning away from sin or letting go of it. Well, anything else I turn to besides Christ, well, that would still be sin. So if I don't have Christ to turn to, how do I repent? Yeah, that's great. Other thoughts on this question? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. right yeah right yeah it's by faith we understand the life and the goodness of Christ and that's why we turn to him yeah good Rob we have a realization of our faith when we repent, or we're usually brought into a state of repentance where we see we have a need for our faith, and so as we repent, our faith grows in Christ. I don't think that one may come before the other, but I think one has a good realization Yeah. Good. Cam, I saw your hand, but... Sure, yeah, I was just going to say that I think repentance is different than something like penance or like, you know, there's a lot of people in other religions who'll be like, oh, yeah, I should change. I should be a better person. But repentance is actually saying, like, God's way is the right way. You know, you're repenting. You're submitting to God. Yeah. The faith may not be fully there yet, but you are submitting as part of that repentance. Yeah, good. Yeah, I think an illustration or image that I find helpful is I like to think of repentance and faith as two sides of the same coin. You know, just like you can't have the heads of the coin without the tails or the tails without the heads. true repentance and true faith always go together. And I think we see that reflected in scripture. So for one, you know, there is no example I could think of where anyone in the Bible, you know, is held up as this is an example of repentance, but they didn't have faith. Or this is an example of faith where they didn't have repentance. I mean, I think everywhere we see it, they're together. Also, if you think about the presentations of the gospel, notice how these seem to be used interchangeably. So sometimes it just says repent. So for example, in Acts 2, when Peter is preaching the first Christian sermon, he concludes by saying, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. He doesn't mention faith or believe. Similarly, Jesus in Matthew 4, it says, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So he just mentions repent there. Then other places, it just says believe. So for example, in Acts 10, this is Peter again, and now he's talking to Cornelius, and he says to him, that is Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. In Acts 2, he says, repent and be forgiven. Acts 10, he says, believe in Jesus and be forgiven. Also in Acts 16, of course, this is Paul when he's speaking to the Philippian jailer, and he says, what must I do to be saved? And Paul says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And then there's other places where it's both repent and believe are mentioned together. So in Mark's account, this is Mark chapter one, Jesus says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So it's both. Acts 20, 21, this again is Paul speaking to the Ephesian church elders. And he says that he's been testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. So either you come to the conclusion, well, these contradict, and sometimes it says you just have to repent, sometimes it says you just have to believe, or sometimes it says it needs both. Or, I think the better explanation is no. Scripture teaches that repentance and faith are two sides of one coin, and true repentance implies faith. And true faith implies repentance. You can't just have one without the other. In fact, not to belabor it too much, but I think one other way to think about it, you know, the word conversion sort of literally is the idea of you're turning around. It's 180 degree change. And so, you know, if you think of repentance as I'm turning from sin, well then faith is I'm turning to Christ, right? It's one act of turning just described from a different reference point. One with respect to the turning away, and the other with respect to the turning to. So repentance and faith are inseparable. They go together. However, that doesn't mean that they're indistinguishable. It doesn't mean that the words are just the exact same. I think they're both working together to describe this conversion, this response that we are called to in order to embrace Christ and receive the gospel. So now I want to think, okay, let's, we've thought about how they relate, but What are they exactly? So, next question is, so what is repentance? How would you define it? What are the essential components of it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would certainly want to lean into the idea of trust, which necessarily implies an action. Because if you really trust, it's going to affect how you live. But let's hold that thought until we talk about faith and define that. First, let's think about repentance. What is repentance, what are the essential sort of components of true repentance? Grief, yeah. Yeah, so repentance implies sorrow over sin. Good, we see that, I think 2 Corinthians chapter six, or maybe it's beginning of seven, talks about that. Good? I would say it starts by acknowledging your sin. Okay, yeah. Like recognizing it. Right, so in order to repent, there has to be some recognition. Yeah, this is what sin is. This is how I've been wrong. Good. You could use that, Rob, you could use that like when I was a kid, and acknowledging that I sinned, and I'll give you this, that this happened to me when I was about 15 to 18. But I was sorry, and I was going to hell, and I wanted to be forgiven of that, but I did not want to repent. I did not want to turn to grace. I just was sorry I got caught in the police getting me out of hell. Right, so there's an acknowledging, there's a sorrowing, and then, I mean, true repentance, I think the best word is there's a hatred of sin itself. Not just a hatred of the negative consequences it may have on you, or a hatred of, oh, I wish I didn't do that because I got caught, but this sin itself is an abomination for God. And I hate this sin because I love God and this has wronged Him and this sin is harming other people. And so there's a turning away from sin itself. Good. Yeah, I think all of that is there. I would also say, you know, repentance means there's a determination, I never want to do that again. Now, it is possible to genuinely repent and yet fall into that sin again, right? I don't think the fact that you stumble into the same sin in the future means, well, it's impossible that you actually repented. I think as believers, we can, Repent and we can fall again. But repentance does demand the kind of attitude change, the hatred for sin that says, I'm going to do everything in my power never to do it again. I'm going to strive to live differently. The word in Greek, metanoia, for repent has this idea of a change of mind or heart. It's a reversal of decision. It's a complete change in our attitude towards sin. Previously I chose to do that and now I am renouncing it. My heart has changed toward that sin. So as I took a stab at a definition of repentance, there's always a balance of how thorough versus, you know, short and sweet. So I try to keep it relatively concise, but I define repentance as when we hate our sin and strive to turn completely away from it. So if that's helpful, you can write that down. When we hate our sin and strive to turn completely away from it. Now let's think next about faith. So what are the essential components of faith and how might we define that? Okay. Right. Yeah, so in one sense, we all have, you know, even sinners, we have faith in lots of other things, but biblical faith, it's focused on Christ alone. Good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's good Historically sometimes faith has been thought of like these three essential components of knowledge ascent and trust So knowledge, meaning that there's certain content, there's certain facts that we need to know about Christ and about what he's done for us. That's a foundation. You can't have faith if you haven't heard of Christ. Romans 10, 14, Paul remarks, how can we believe in him of whom we've never heard? We can't have faith in a Savior we don't know about. So knowledge is essential. But then secondly, we need to assent or acknowledge the truth of that. You can hear about it and think it's a fairy tale. Well, you're not going to have faith if you don't believe that it's there. You know, Hebrews says whoever would come to God must believe that he is and that he's the rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So knowledge and assent, but then as has been rightly emphasized, biblical faith requires trust. not just assenting to, yes, I acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross and rose again. There is a personal trust or reliance on Christ alone for salvation. And as has already been pointed out, a reliance that would lead us to act, to stake our eternity on him. you know, to not rely on anything else, to not think, well, if I just get circumcised, if I just, you know, do some good works, that could save me. It's to say, no, Christ alone is my hope and trust. So as a definition of faith, I wrote down, when we rely on Jesus Christ alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel, So faith is when we rely on Jesus Christ alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. Now the time we have left, I have a couple sort of applications slash digging deeper questions. And the first of those is I want us to think evangelistically. What would you say to someone that you're trying to share the gospel with, and they say something like, I want to follow Jesus, but I just can't stop sinning. Maybe there's a particular addiction, maybe there's unforgiveness, maybe there's a struggle with sexual immorality, whatever it is, they're kind of saying, it's like, I want to repent, but I just can't. I'm trying to be a Christian, but I'm just not. How might you counsel that person? Any thoughts on that? Andrew? This is sort of my gut reaction, but it would just be that in the power of the gospel, you can, and it may be very small at first, but to pray. that whatever small turn is real okay yeah yeah so we want to point them to hope not despair not to think well yeah there's just nothing you can do and just give up but yeah point them to prayer yep Hayden Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, don't try to clean yourself up and then go to Jesus. Go now. Yeah. Good. Steve? He came, Jesus came to heal the sick. Yeah. And you're not going to be able to change your want to. Only He can change your want to. Yeah. Yep, Darren? I think I often hear that the two are sort of being married as one. I want to follow Jesus, but I just can't stop sinning. They're basically just saying, I want to stop sinning, but I can't stop sinning, is what they kind of mean sometimes, which is a misunderstanding of what the gospel is. To be a Christian does not mean it's just a self-improvement. OK, I want to go to church, but I I just don't. And I'm not also really very concerned about that, because I don't really want to go to church in the first place. I don't know. Yeah. Good. Any other thoughts? I think this is a part of the reason I asked that question. It challenges us to wrestle with both how we present the gospel and think about what the gospel is demanding when we think about repentance and faith in a way that can be helpful. On one level, we might be tempted when someone says, I'm trying to repent, but I just can't, to kind of say, yeah, you're right. You can't repent. You're totally depraved. And just kind of stop there, which I think there can be a time where we need to point people. As Andrew said, we pray. Your heart is so hard that you cannot, in and of yourself, just even come to Christ. That's how hard your heart is. You need to cry out to God for grace, that's true. But as we do that, I think we also need to be careful that we not give someone an excuse for not repenting. How quickly a sinful heart twists that into, I can't, and therefore it's on God. and I just sit back. I think, you know, scripture clearly emphasizes the responsibility of sinners to repent. So we want to present the gospel in such a way that we are clear that, you know, our hardness of heart, that is, you know, our fault, that we are accountable. And so we want to emphasize that, you know, you must repent because The only thing keeping you back from repentance is your own love for sin. So I think that's sort of one piece of it. Now I think on the other side, we might respond by just kind of wanting to hammer, well, you need to repent. You need to try harder. You need to do better. You know, stop all your sinning, you know, and then you believe in Christ. And there, there's another danger, which is legalism and sort of works righteousness sliding in. You know, how easily, you know, this person that's struggling to repent, we can sort of counsel them in a way that basically translates to, you know, clean yourself up and then come to Christ. And as was already pointed out, Jesus didn't come to call the righteous but sinners. That's basically like telling someone, you need to get healthy and then you can go see the doctor. That's not the way it works. The sicker you are, the more sinful you are. That's why we qualify to go to Christ. He has come to call sinners. Think of Zacchaeus. We love that story how first Jesus says to Zacchaeus, I must stay at your house tonight. Then Zacchaeus responds, half my goods I give to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone, I restore fourfold." I think it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. So we want to emphasize the grace of the gospel to that person. And then, but then even as we do that, I think sort of a third just caution. There are those that will say, well, just believe, come as you are, God accepts you no matter what. But we can do that in a way that almost implies that repentance is optional. or repentance is something that can take place later. In fact, in the 80s, there was something called the Lordship Salvation Controversy, and those who were on the side of the anti-Lordship Salvation, they were basically teaching, well, you can accept Jesus as your Savior now, and then you can make Him your Lord later. And the way they got there is basically by saying, you know, salvation is by faith. And if you add repentance to faith, you turn it into a work. And so therefore, it's just believe. And, you know, repentance can be this future thing. But again, if we go back, as we said at the beginning, repentance and faith tie together. It's not biblical to try to separate them. So I think a much better way to handle that is really to say, yes, Jesus accepts us as we are, but he is the Lord who will never leave us as we are. And therefore, going to him means you need to be prepared to be changed. The question isn't, are you good enough for Jesus? Are you healthy enough to go to the doctor? The question is, do you want to be well? Has your attitude towards sin changed such that the sin you have been living in, you no longer want to live in anymore? And therefore, you want to turn to the Savior, who will not only forgive your sin, but He will change you and bring you out of it. And a lot of people, you know, the unregenerate heart doesn't want that, because they want the sin. But the hope of the gospel is saying, it's not that we have to somehow climb up the mountain to arrive, it's turn around. He's right there, willing, ready to receive whoever would simply turn to Him. So I hope that's helpful as you think, you know, what do we say to one who says, I just can't stop sinning? Well, yeah, we emphasize, yes, your heart is very hard. You need to pray and cry out to God for grace. And then we want to tell them about Christ and His love for sinners and all that He did on the cross. And then we want to ask Him, and do you want to be well? I think that would be some helpful ways to respond. Yeah, and that that leads us so just very briefly the last question So are there degrees of repentance and faith and if so, when is someone truly saved? What do you guys think about that question? Okay, here, yes, and I agree. You know, Jesus often speaks of his disciples as being those of little faith, right? Clearly implying that there are varying degrees of faith, and I think repentance as well. Paul prays for an increase in faith for the Corinthians and some Christians. Yeah, so clearly there's degrees. So then how, when is someone truly saved? It's not when our repentance or our faith is perfect. Nor, I would not even say, it's not like it's when our repentance and faith reaches a certain threshold. It's when there's any genuine repentance and faith at all. That's when salvation takes place. And genuine repentance and faith is the result of a fundamental heart change. Where instead of fundamentally loving sin, By the grace of God, we begin to trust in Christ, to hate sin, and instead of relying on anything other than Christ fundamentally for salvation, we rely on Him alone. And then our whole life as Christians, it is a lifelong process of continued repentance and faith and growing in that sanctification. When we did the series on church discipline, I defined a disciple as someone who's committed to believing and obeying whatever Jesus says. And I think a person who's truly repented and believed, that's what they're doing. And a lot of times we don't even know the things that we need to repent of. And yet, little by little, the Lord is revealing, and there's often a struggle in our heart where we don't want to let go of this, and we lack faith to trust Christ like we ought. And yet, by the grace of God, gradually through our life, we learn to let go a little more and trust more in Christ. And so, that is the process that we continue in as believers. All right, well, we will pick up talking about justification next time, but let me close us in prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for the hope of the gospel, the way you freely offer salvation to all who repent and believe. Lord, we thank you for the grace that you've given us even to do that. We pray that you would help us to grow in faith and in repentance more and more. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.