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2 Cor. 7:8-12
We invite you to join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:30. You can download our service on iTunes or tune in for “The Good Word” each day on AM 1230 WSAL or on Hoosier Country 103.7 FM just after 8am. We are continuing our study in the doctrine of conversion. We learned last time that in order for a person to be saved they must be aware of truth. That awareness comes through revelation-or reading the inspired Word of God. In order for a person to be saved they must also come to the point where they agree that the Bible is truth and accept it as such, especially if a person has had no, or very little, exposure to Scripture. However, the next step is one of the hardest steps in receiving God’s free gift of salvation. At some point every person who has ever received God’s gift of salvation has come to the point where they stop trusting, or depending in themselves and all their own efforts to gain favor or merit with God – and become totally dependent upon the finished work of Christ to save them.
You remember conversion means turning from sin which is repentance to Christ which is faith. This is so, to speak, the point where you take your hands off the wheel and trust Christ to do all the driving for the rest of your life! Often times the first time you ever try anything new in your life, is the hardest. The first time you tried to tie your shoe, or the first time you tried to button your shirt or blouse, or the first time you tried to parallel-park. Throughout our life there are many first times that are hard for us. Many of those hard times happen in our Christian life when God asked us to trust Him completely in a new area of our life for the 1st time! Conversion, or becoming totally dependent on the finished work of Christ as the only work that will change the direction of our life from eternal death in hell to eternal life in Christ – is for all who are saved, the first time they are required to trust their eternal future to a Person they have yet to meet face-to-face. Wayne Grudem correctly teaches, our faith should increase as our knowledge increases. We place our lives in the devices of our daily living without giving a second thought because we do it every day and it has become commonplace to us.
This doctrine of conversion is part of the reason I tell you, you do not have to judge whether or not a person is a true Christian. All you have to do is watch how they live their daily life away from this place, and listen to the way they talk away from this place, the way they treat others away from this place, and they will tell you, and show you whether or not their heart belongs to Christ. One reason even true Christians struggle in growing in Christ is because they do not fully understand, as Wayne Gruden so clearly explains, faith and repentance must come together. He defines repentance as “a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.” My prayer is that God will bring the following question to your mind over and over in the days to come. Ask yourself this question: if someone who doesn’t know me, and had never before read The Bible, watched me and listened to me without my awareness they were doing so; and at the same time read just the NT for the 1st time in their life, would they, at the end of the week, come and ask me to teach them how to live the way the Bible teaches because they’d seen me live that way all week? Now beloved, everyone in this room, and many in the listening audience, already know the true answer to that question. And as you deal with that question this week it’s important for you to remember God also knows the true answer. If we can help you answer your spiritual questions, call us at (574) 643-9419.
