Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No.32 – August 2002

 

Thankfulness and Conversion

 

Sermon by Rev MP Geluk

on Lord's Day 33 (Q&A 88-91 Heid Cat)

Scripture Reading: Romans 6:1-14

Suggested Hymns: BoW 92; 469; 174; 215

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

By the grace of God, sinners who repent and believe are taken out of the swamp and placed on higher ground.  Remember how, last time, we used that illustration to picture the transformation from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ?  The term that describes that change is conversion.  The classic example of conversion from the Bible is the lost son.  There among the pigs he came to his senses when he realised what a mess his life was in.  Why not return home to a better life?

A conversion experience is often referred to as a U-turn.  You do a U-turn on the road when you realise you're going in the wrong direction.  All sinners need to do a U-turn before they can enter the kingdom of God.  It takes place when people become aware they are travelling away from God and must turn around and go back to God.

However, when Lord's Day 33 speaks of conversion, it's not referring to that initial conversion from the swamp to the higher ground, the change that turns the sinner into a Christian.  Lord's Day 33 speaks of daily conversion, or continuous conversion.  And we must note that Lord's Day 33 is in the section of the Heidelberg Catechism that deals with 'gratitude'.  The previous part of the Catechism has already dealt with deliverance from sin.  It has already explained the change from darkness to light.

The Catechism is now dealing with the godly living of believers who are in the light.  Scripture says that godly living flows out of the believer's thankfulness to God for what He has done for us in Christ.  But the Scriptures also say that a thankful Christian life needs constant changing to the ways of God because it is still imperfect.

We're looking, then, at the teaching of God's Word about THANKFULNESS AND CONVERSION.

1.  Thankfulness in Conversion

The Christian is truly blessed.  Your sins have been forgiven and the guilt that comes with sin has been removed.  Christ has done that for you through His suffering and death.  The sinner who believes this has peace with God.  Your relationship with God is no longer one of condemnation but of grace.  And God gives His Spirit to the believer and helps you understand God's Word, guides you in God's way, and gives encouragement and strength to live Christianly.  Now all these blessings that the Christian has ought to turn him or her into a thankful Christian.

With this thankfulness in their hearts all Christians have good intentions of wanting to serve God.  Just like the lost son who, when he came home, was very willing to work for his father.  So also Christians are willing to serve their heavenly Father.  This willingness is in you because the Spirit has put it in your converted heart and you know that your conversion is not complete until you are completely new, inside and outside.

There's a helpful illustration from C.S. Lewis that is probably familiar to some of you.  Lewis said that many Christians first call on the Lord to do some little fixing in their lives, like home-owners who call on the repairman to fix the plumbing.  But once Christ, the Repairman comes into the house, He does not merely fix a leaky valve and a broken pipe, but remodels the whole house.  He installs new windows and doors and does not cease rebuilding until the shack has become a mansion.

That's how it usually goes with us as Christians.  When the Lord has taken you out of the swamp and onto higher ground, then if swearing is one of your sins, you ask God to help you stop swearing.  If drinking is a problem with you, then you ask God to help you overcome that.

Usually the sins you want fixed are ones that are the most obvious to you.  But the Lord does not go by what you think a spiritual house should look like.  He has His own design, and it is far more beautiful than yours is.

So, through His Word and Spirit, the Lord starts making you aware of all the other things that need looking at.  Maybe your treatment of other people is not Christlike enough.  Or you are expecting the church to do everything for you, instead of you serving the Lord in the church where you are a member.  Perhaps you don't know the Bible well enough and have to start reading it more.  There are many things that need fixing.  Even some things that were working well but broke down again.

You are not aware of things being faulty unless you regularly hear God speaking to you through His Word.  Hence the familiar emphasis on faithful church attendance, personal devotions and daily prayer.  Through these avenues you become aware of the state your spiritual house is in and you want the things that are crook fixed up.

Now this desire to act on your good intentions, to break with things that are not right in the Lord's eyes, to do the things He wants and being sorry for not having done so sooner, is what we call repentance.  Repentance is another word for daily conversion.

But where does faith fit into all this?  Well, you have to believe that the beautiful mansion the Lord wants you to be is not a pie in the sky but reality.  Jesus the Repairman will not stop renovating until the job is done.  And you can be thankful for that.  In fact, what a blessing it is that God gives you faith to see it.  He has come to you with His grace in Jesus Christ.  Like the lost son in the pig sty, God has made you see that your life was revolving around yourself.  He made you come to your senses and made you long to go home.  He forgave your sins and took away your guilt.  He made you righteous in Christ.  Yes, it was your initial conversion.  Then God sets about the task of remodelling your life.  He wants you to become like Christ.  He wants you to have the fruit of the Spirit.  And that's your daily conversion.  Now in all that, we believe that He will do as He says.

Faith is important because when you're struggling with sin and conscious of your repeated failures, depression can come over you like a fog.  But now you, the imperfect Christian, may look at Christ and believe that He will accomplish what He set out to do with you.  He will turn you into a mansion.

In the Bible the Lord shows you the plans of what you will look like when it's all finished.  You need to see the plans often and be reminded that every time the Lord fixes up a few things, you are starting to look like more and more the kind of person He wants you to become.  Faith looks at the finished product, longs for its reality, hopes you will get there, and knows that you will.

Both Romans 6 and Lord's Day 33 speak about all this in terms of the dying-away of the old self and the coming-to-life of the new self.  Christians sometimes find that a bit difficult to understand.  Andrew Kuyvenhoven's explanation, in his book “Comfort & Joy" is as good as any.  The "old self” was the unregenerate you.  It's what you were before you were born again by the Spirit of God.  Sometimes it's called the "old man".  This is a reference to the fallen Adam.  This old self, the fallen Adam in you, was put on the cross and died when Christ died.  When Christ arose from the dead, then He is the new Adam, the new Man and the life-giving Spirit.  And Christ puts that part of Him in the believer.

Now the old self in those of us who are Christian was crucified with Christ.  It therefore has no more power over you.  When your old self was nailed to the cross with Christ, then that was its end.  It was the end of the old man, the old Adam in Andrew and Cathy and Harry and Joan.  When Christ died, my old sinful self died.

If you ask Kuyvenhoven when he was converted, then he answers that it happened on Golgotha.  There his old self was killed.  And when you ask him when he came to life, when his new self was born, then he tells us that it happened when Christ arose.  Because Christ died for the old man of sin and arose to bring in the new man of righteousness, you, too, must "count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom.6:11).  You and I and the whole church may apply this truth to ourselves.

By faith we know that we have died and that we have risen, because Christ died to sin and arose to live for God.  The death of your old self in the death of Christ and the coming to life of your new self in the resurrection of Christ are therefore once-off events.  That is, they do not need repeating.  You have to believe that.  Christ has accomplished your conversion from darkness to light, from sin to Christ, for you.  But then the Lord commands you as converted people to “Set your hearts on things above" (Col.3:1).  "Put to death... whatever belongs to your earthly nature," and "as God's chosen people... clothe yourselves with Christian virtues" (3:5-14).  And there you have daily conversion.  By faith you believe that God has made you new in Christ.  Then God speaks to you and says, “now become what I have made you, take on this new nature.” In thankfulness to God all Christians should be busy with this.

We often hear other Christians say, and we ourselves have also said it, that this ongoing conversion is difficult.  We find it a struggle to put down the urge to sin.  The apostle Paul admits, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing" (Rom.7:18-19).  Then, in verse 20, he adds what seems contradictory, "Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it".

Who, according to Paul, is now doing the wrong things in him?  He wants to do good, but ends up doing evil.  He concludes that it is sin living in him that causes him to do evil.  For he also says that in his inner being he “delights in God's law” (vs.22).  He is saying that he loves to do the good God wants him to do.  Paul is saying then that daily conversion is both a difficult battle and a joyful obedience.

When you examine yourself, would you then not agree it goes something like this?  By the grace of God you are a Christian.  God has made you new in Christ and you are no longer under condemnation.  You are deeply thankful for that.  The new nature that God's Spirit has put inside you wants to obey God.  You like to obey Him.  As a Christians you're not being dragged kicking and screaming into obeying God.  You know and have experienced the new life in Christ, and that's what you want.

Surely you are not attracted to cursing and foul language.  Surely you hate crude and obscene behaviour.  Surely you don't want to steal and cheat on your partner.  God forbids it and you agree with God that He should.  Your conscience won't let you sin with intent and abandon.  You rejoice with things that are good.  You are delighted when you see obedience to God's will in your own life and in other Christians' lives.

What I have done so far is merely describing the Christian you.  But to your dismay you are still attracted to certain sins.  You don't really want to sin, and yet you don't get yourself out of the temptation as fast and cleanly as you should.  You hang around.  You think up excuses that justify your interest in things that are wrong.

And now that's the battle.  God's Spirit in you makes you hate sin.  The new self in you agrees with the Spirit.  But that new self has still a lot of growing up to do.  And it has to grow while surrounded by a sinful world.  There are temptations and you allow your resolve not to sin to weaken and so you end up doing things you really do not want to do.  Because your resistance to sin is not one hundred percent, you give in to that aspect of your nature that wants to do the sin.  And then when the sinful deed has been done, you feel terrible.  Sometimes more quickly than at other times.

Your new self is accusing you.  God's Spirit is accusing you.  Finally you end up repenting before God and you humbly ask to be forgiven.  And God is gracious and He will forgive you, for Christ's sake.  For you still belong to Him.  Even your sins cannot undo what God is doing in you.  But you can now see that you need conversion in your thankfulness.  And that has brought us to our second point.  The first point was our "thankfulness in conversion” and now our second point is...

2.  Conversion in Thankfulness

Because your thankfulness is not consistent enough, you need to improve it.  Christians have to constantly reform their obedience to God.

How do you know what changes to make to your thankfulness to God?  You need the Word of God to tell you because you do not discover these things by yourself.  You can be like some Christians who live on for years in the false belief that there is nothing really wrong with their attitude until one day something from the Word of God hits them right between the eyes.  All of a sudden it is clear to you that you were too proud, or too bossy, or too this or too that.

It is also possible, of course, that you are well aware of your shortcomings.  The Word of God reminds you every time and maybe other Christians have gently tried in love to make you aware as well.  In fact, when others try to Christianly point out your sins, then you impatiently cut them off by saying, “Yes, I know, I know."  But unless you are really serious about wanting to change, you won't do it.

In this connection you can understand the Psalmist's prayer, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Ps.119:18).  Yes, open my eyes, Lord, and make me see where I am failing you.  And you have to be prepared to put your whole life under the scrutiny of God's examination.

There's the hymn, “Take my life that it may be all your purpose, Lord, for me.”  The hymn mentions most things that make up our lives.  We sing: Take my life, take my moments, take my days, my hands, feet, voice, lips, wealth, mind, motives, heart, love and finally myself.  You will sometimes feel a bit hypocritical singing that hymn because you are not always willing to be all what God's wants you to be.  And yet you are also glad that we do sing it from time to time because it reminds you that your thankfulness to God needs an overhaul, a conversion.

Making changes to your lives as a thankful Christian can perhaps best be remembered under these three headings:

• as a converted Christian I must abide in Christ,
• I must make God's law my standard, and
• I must aim to glorify God.

Abiding in Christ is taught in John 15 where Christ is the Vine and we are the branches.  If you don't abide in Christ, you will not produce any fruit.  When God comes to check on how things are going in His church and kingdom and sees that this branch and that branch are consistently not bearing any fruit, then He will cut them off and burn them in the fire.  Daily conversion requires abiding in Christ.  You are not your own any more.  You belong to Him.  The new life you live is the life Christ lives in you.

You need frequent reminders to abide in Christ.  Not only when you pray or read the Bible but also in taking care of the family, doing your business, when you are at meetings, playing sports - yes, in everything.  For that's what abiding in Christ means.  The branches that bear fruit are not in the vine at certain times and on their own at other times.  They are in the vine all the time.  So whatever you do, and wherever you are, you must be conscious of Christ wanting to live in you.  The Christian no longer has a life of his own.  He belongs to Christ.  So that's the first thing, a converted Christian abides in Christ.

Then secondly, you must also make the law of God the standard for your life.  As Christians we cannot have any other measuring stick.

Your neighbours are not your models.  Books and films do not set the tone for you.  If they happen to be Christian neighbours, books and films, then they are a standard only insofar as they reflect the truth of God's Word.  Even non-Christian neighbours, books and films can, in places, point to Scriptural truths.  But the Catechism in the following Lord's Days will be looking at the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, and the scriptural application of these will touch upon all of life.  It will be a delight to discover again how the Lord's teaching on the commandments and His model prayer will show us in practical terms how to serve God in thankfulness.  So a converted Christian abides in Christ and makes the law of God his standard.

Then thirdly, you make the glory of God your aim.  When you do good for God, then remember that God is watching you.  There is no need for you to try and make an impression on others.  When you seek the admiring glances of others and covet their praise, then you will end up trying to please them more than God.  Children like to show off.  They want to be noticed and they crave for attention.  When we're adult Christians, then we have to leave such childish ways behind us.

Showing off is a sin that can be practised in many subtle ways.  Under the pretence of honouring God, you also seek to be noticed by others.  Of course, you don't want some simpleton to praise you, for that means nothing.  You want people who could be of benefit to you to notice you.  Their praise could make you look important in the eyes of others.  To combat this tendency to glorify one's self, Christians often need to pray for single-mindedness, that God will help them to live to His glory only.

So, the thankful Christian abides in Christ, makes God's law his standard, and aims to glorify God.

Finally, let us not become weary in doing good.  We said already that it is a delight to serve and obey God as His people.  But there is also the struggle to not give up.  The Lord is aware of this and therefore encourages you not to become weary (Gal.6:9).  He said that there will come a time when we will reap a harvest if we keep at it.  You, living a thankful life for God and doing good, can result in other people becoming repentant of their sins and turn to God.  Frequently you may not even be aware that God is using you to be a blessing to others.  But one day you may be privileged to hear that your Christian life touched other lives.

And remember also that daily conversion is a life-long process.  The race will only be finished when you have run the course God has marked out for you.  And rejoice that the Lord will complete the work He has begun in you.

The Bible says, “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil.1:6).

Amen.