Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 13 – April 1990

 

Repentance Or Conversion

 

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord's Day 33 (Q&A 88-9)

Reading: Colossians 3:1-17; Psalm 1

 

Conversion is a word in the vocabulary of the Christian church that we must never lose the meaning of.

If the members of the church start shrugging their shoulders, when asked if they are converted, then the church is in a bad way indeed.  So what is meant by conversion?

Different people mean different things by it.  In a game of rugby a try can be converted by a kick for a goal.  When you travel overseas then you have to convert your money from one currency into another.  But when God speaks of conversion, He obviously means something else by it.

When the Bible speaks of conversion it is referring to a kind of U-turn.  People who are unconverted are travelling in the wrong direction with their lives.  When conversion takes place then their lives take a U-turn, that is, they make a turn-about.  They change because they realise they are going in a wrong direction that will take them over the edge.  So they stop, turn around, and begin travelling in a new direction that leads them to God.

Conversion can also be taken to include repentance.  The apostle Paul said that when he preached the Gospel to the gentiles, then he demanded "that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds". (Acts 26:20).

If conversion is a turning to God then repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin before God.  In fact, the Bible would teach that repentance is genuine when the sinner not only owns up to his sins and confesses them before God, but is now determined not to do them again.  By substituting acts of sin with good deeds that glorify God, the person is proving that his repentance is from the heart and not merely skin-deep.  But that is what conversion is really all about.  Lord's Day 33, therefore, speaks of repentance or conversion as meaning the same thing.

We proclaim the Word of God then concerning:

Repentance or Conversion

1.  Its beginning and its continuation.

2.  It means to follow Christ.

3.  It leads to joy in God.

1.  In the first place then let us see the beginning and continuation of repentance or conversion.  There must be a conversion in the sinner if he is to enter the kingdom of God.  Make no mistake about that!  Everyone here who can say, "By the grace of God I am a Christian", should also be able to say, "By the grace of God I have repented" or "By the grace of God I am converted.  There is no such thing as an unconverted Christian.  At some point of time in his life, either sudden or gradual, the Christian will know that he has made a U-turn.  He stopped serving sin and began serving God.  He changed from an ugly self-centred sinner to a believer in Christ who, because of the Holy Spirit working in his heart now wants to serve and please God.  A transformation has taken place.

It's not unlike the way a caterpillar changes into a butterfly.  The caterpillar is one of the greatest pests on earth because it does nothing else but eat and grow.  It is an altogether selfish creature.  The beans you were so proud of in your garden, the leaves of your healthy vegetables and other good-looking plants, the caterpillar devours them all.  You either live with these little pests or you spend time and money in trying to get rid of them.

But one day those caterpillars that survive attach themselves to some twig or leaf and build a cocoon around themselves.  And inside that cocoon the caterpillar changes in a most remarkable way and becomes a butterfly.  In as little as ten days, or as long as ten months, the newly-formed butterfly breaks out of the cocoon.  Then within thirty minutes, this new and beautiful creature is ready to fly and begin its useful life.  It will now not serve itself but the flowers.  It carries pollen from flower to flower, sipping only small amounts of nectar and bits of other fluid for its food.

You will have noticed that it was the change from caterpillar to butterfly that marked the beginning of a useful existence.  It is the same with us.  The beginning of our serving of God is when we changed from a sinner interested only in self to a person who wants to please God.

You can see that so clearly in the parable of the lost son.  Before he came to his senses, he lived only for himself.  He didn't care about his father nor about God.  From his father he demanded his share of the inheritance and with all that money to his name he lived a very worldly life wherein he aimed to please himself.  God wasn't even thought about.

But the change came when he found himself envious of the sloppy food the pigs were eating.  That change he experienced within himself is what the Bible calls repentance or conversion.  Notice that it was a change of heart and mind with regard to four things.

The first thing concerned God.  The young man had begun to see that his selfish life was not pleasing to God.  He was going to say to his father that he had sinned against heaven.  His life had been travelling away from God.  The second thing concerned himself.  He now saw what a selfish fool he had been.  Before he loved himself but now he didn't like what he saw.  He had to change.  The third thing concerned sin.  Yes, sin was having no regard for God or others.  He had just pleased himself and had broken God's commandments.  He felt quite bad about all that.  The fourth thing concerned righteousness.  There had to be an improvement.  He could not go on living like he had been doing.  From now on he would live a life that was useful to his father and to God.

So a change had come over the young man.  In his heart and mind he knew he had been terribly wrong towards God.  His own life had been utterly wasteful.  He had to break with sin, turn around and do things wherein he could serve God and others.

Without such a change, congregation, no one will enter the kingdom of God.  No one will be saved if there is no turning around to God.

The old self has to die with Jesus on the cross and the new self has to be raised in the resurrection of Christ.  If your old man of sin is not crucified with Christ then you will remain in sin and die in it.  The old man is not your earthly father but it is the sinful selfish you.  That old John, that old Cathy has to die and in their place the new John and the new Cathy has to rise in Christ.

Now all that is the beginning of repentance or conversion.  We felt we had to make that clear to you because some of you might think that you are a Christian by merely believing in Christ.  A person might say that he believes Christ to be the Saviour and thinks by that act of faith he is right with God.  But if he is still the same old John as he was before then he is not right with God and not saved.  A person might even stand before God and the congregation and profess faith, but again if his life has not seen a radical transformation like that from the caterpillar to the butterfly, or as it happened with the lost son, then nothing has changed.  He is still in his sins and has not truly repented.  Whatever faith was professed it was not a true faith.

But if there has to be a true beginning to the Christian life, then there also has to be a definite continuation of it.  Lord's Day 33 is, in fact, speaking more about the continuation of repentance or conversion than about its beginning.  Its emphasis is not with the initial change from caterpillar to butterfly but with the learning to fly as a butterfly.  The concern of L.D.33 is not with the initial conversion of the lost son when he came to his senses down there among the pigs but with his on-going conversion as a son once he had come back home.

When in His wonderful grace, God has brought us sinners back home, then God wants us to live as sons of God and as daughters of God.  We are now talking about that whole new world in Christ where we, as the Bible puts it, "count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Rom.5:11).  Indeed, those who have had the beginning of repentance or conversion should say to themselves, "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Rom.6:2).  And, "just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Rom.6:4).

Repentance and conversion, therefore, are never really finished until we are completely new, inside and outside.  Every day we have to keep on making changes so that our lives reveal more and more a love to God and love to neighbour.

C.S.Lewis has a delightful illustration when he observes that many Christians first call on the Lord to do some little fixing in their lives.  By the grace of God they have been made to repent.  There has been a genuine change of heart and mind and they have returned home in order to live as a child of God.  And they realise that a bit of repair needs to be done to themselves and their lifestyle.

But, explains Lewis, once the repairman, Christ, comes into the house, He does not merely fix a leaky valve and a broken pipe but He remodels the whole house!  He installs new windows and doors and does not cease rebuilding until the shack has become a mansion.

The Catechism calls this continual repentance or conversion a dying-away of the old self and the coming-to-life of the new.

2.  In our second point we want to explain that further by saying that repentance or conversion implies that the Christian must follow Christ.  This continuous process of dying-away of the old self and the coming-to- life of the new self is not something each believer can make up his own mind about.  It is a command that we all must obey!  It's what following Christ is all about.  It's the continuing rebuilding of the house.

Look, for example, at what the Christians at Colossae were told to do.  "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above,... not on earthly things" (Col.3:1,2).  What is meant by "things above" and "earthly things"?

Well, the "things above" are the things of heaven or the things of Christ, and the "earthly things" are the things which the sinful human nature does.  The two are, of course, completely opposite.  The things of the sinful nature are to be constantly put to death and the things of Christ constantly put on, or kept alive.

Belonging to the sinful human nature are: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, lies and filthy language.  You find similar lists elsewhere in the Bible.  Some Christians don't particularly like hearing about these lists of different kinds of sin and avoid them.  And yet they are unavoidable when the Christian reads the Word of God.  The letter to every church in the New Testament has them.  Interestingly enough therefore they are mentioned when God speaks to Christians.  It's like Christ, the repairman, coming to continually fix up our shack and trying to make it look like a mansion.  He sees a bit of lust here and some impurity there and tells us to get rid of those magazines, books and videos which inflame our lust and turns the blessing of pure desire and sex into Sodoms and Gommorrahs.  On His next visit Christ, the repairman, spots a bit of greed and some wrong use of the tongue and He tells us to stop spending money on ourselves only and be mindful of others with various needs.  And He tells us to quit swearing or saying dirty words notwithstanding our protests that most people now mean different things from what the words really mean.

Yes, every time Christ, the repairman, visits us, which is whenever we hear or read His Word, and His Spirit works on our conscience, then He commands us to get rid of this or that because it just doesn't belong in a mansion.  And true repenting of sins means more than just a general confession which in a wide sweep takes care of all our sins.  True repentance will require of us that we name the sin when we confess it.  We all have our secret sins, sins that are peculiar to us personally.  It is those sins that Christ, the repairman, wants us to get rid of.

Of course, as the one who rebuilds our lives, Christ does more than telling us to put to death the things belonging to our sinful human nature.  He also tells us to put on those things that belong to heaven, the things from above.  When Christ repairs our lives, He comes to us with a whole new lot of building supplies.  He provides us with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, peace, and thankfulness.  Now those are the things that make our lives really look like a mansion.  It is a pleasure for others to visit us and we ourselves are happy that our lives remind others of Christ.

Now all that dying-away of the sinful nature and coming-to-life of the new nature in Christ is part and parcel of following Christ.  Every day, every hour the Lord wants to visit us.  No, he wants to be our constant guest.  The Saviour with His heavenly splendour wants us to be clothed with righteousness, cleanness and purity.  Or if you, young men, think that imaginary picture is better suited to women, then you can think of the Christian soldier, who is really not any different, but who is clothed with truth, righteousness, peace, and has the weapons of faith, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and prayer.

Is it easy to follow Christ?  This business of continually repenting and converting to God, is that a hard thing to do?  Well, to be a true disciple of Christ involves a cost.  And paying a price is never easy but always hard.  In the school of discipleship we have to learn to give up sinful habits and be willing to learn new ones.  It's not so bad when we ourselves can clearly see how damaging those sinful habits are and what good comes from the new ones we learn.  But we are often blind and cannot always see what advantages there are in following Christ.

Why is it that some of us are unable to conquer lust?  It's because we still have a hunger for things and people that do not belong to us, and we are still not satisfied with what the Lord has given us.  Why is it that some of us we are still bitchy and spiteful?  Because we still are unable to love the neighbour the way Christians should.

Following Christ, therefore, is not a simple matter.  Precisely because it involves self- denial.  Dying is always difficult.  To say no to sinful self and to worldly ambitions is always accompanied by pain.  But Jesus is а faithful friend.  He says: "Take heart!  I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).

3.  And that brings us to our final point where we say that repentance or conversion leads to joy in God.  The Catechism says that the coming-to-life of the new self is a wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a delight to do every kind of good as God wants us to.  Indeed, which Christian believer would not be happy when he is aware of Christ remodelling his life into a mansion?  It would be hard to imagine someone, who has moved out of his old shack and into a nice new place, to be still emphasizing the rotten condition of the old shack.  Yet, that still happens with some followers of Christ.

They are preoccupied more with the acts of the sinful human nature than with the acts of the new nature.  They may live by the grace of God in the new mansion but you get the impression from their talk and prayer that it is as if they are still in the shack.  Yes, true repentance will mean that we often have to confess before God the sins we continue to do and not fight enough.  But is it God-honouring to always confess one's sinfulness so strongly, that one wonders if the believer has indeed stepped out of sin's darkness into God's marvellous light?

If Christ has rescued us from death and made us alive in Him, then we should honour God in saving us and making us new in Christ.  We should believe it, if it is true that we are genuinely converted.  When a beggar has been cleaned up and given a new set of clothes, then it would be a rather thankless act, if before his kind helper he still goes on complaining and moaning how bad things were when he was still in rags.  He should put that time behind him now and rejoice in the new conditions.  Moreover, he should try very hard not to put stains on his new suit.  If through carelessness that does happen, then he should apologise, and get rid of the stain and prevent it from happening again.

But we do not overcome evil by merely fighting it.  Too often we are that kind of Christian who knows of the various sins in his life and says to himself, "yes, these things are wrong and I must fight them.”  But why is his battle against his sins only a half-hearted attempt?  Well, he has nothing to replace the sin with.  And because he is not concentrating on what could be put into sin's place, his desire to be rid of sin is not all that strong.

Christians, therefore, must learn to taste the goodness of the Lord.  They must more and more put on the good things of Christ and practise the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  We already know where quarrelling and divorce lead to.  We know what stealing and greed will get us into.  Well, now we have to learn what wholehearted service and obedience to Christ will lead to.  It leads to happiness and well-being.  When we develop a taste for doing good, then evil is easier to resist.  When friendliness and helpfulness are seen to be helping the family relationship to work better, then we have discovered the secret of not wanting to argue and fight.

It's a bit like a small child at school trying to master the art of writing.  It's quite difficult at first; the letters just don't seem to come right.  The child looks at the mess and despairs.  And when he sees the teacher writing beautiful letters on the blackboard, then he feels like giving up altogether.  But the teacher is offering to help anyone having problems.  The child asks and the teacher comes over and holds the child's hand as he tries to write.  Together it goes much better.  The teacher writes but the child writes too.  The child is happy.  His joy is such that he wants to again.

So it is with Christians.  Let us not muddle on by ourselves.  Ask the Lord and He will help you overcome the problem of sin.  And the Lord helping you to do things right will give you much joy.  So much so that you become even more determined to kill off your old sinful nature and put on the new self which is the new nature in Christ.

AMEN