What is a true conversion?

 

LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES FROM SUNDAY 1 MAY 2022 pm

1 THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 1

 

These young believers were going through a doubtful frame of mind.  Paul writes to them to give assurance.  They were not sure whether they were saved or not.  Paul takes time to write this letter to bring to their remembrance certain things.  Doesn’t that happen too as children of God? The devil gets us to doubt our salvation.  It is good to return to the word of God, to give us assurance.  What is a true conversion today?  Satan takes control at times to discourage us as believers, to make us doubt why we are going through certain things.  For those who are not saved he can bring confusion about salvation, to keep us locked in his hand.

 

A revelation of the gospel – verse 5.  The salvation of man begins in the heart of God not in the heart of man.  “There is none righteous, no not one.  There is none that seeketh after God.” (Romans 3 verses 10 and 11) John 3 verse 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  God shows his great love for us that while we were yet sinners, he died for us.  That he would send his son to die for us – that is his love for us.  This is the love that drew salvations plan, the grace that brought it down to man, the mighty gulf that God did span, at Calvary.  Jonah in the depths of the belly of the fish cried out “salvation is of the Lord”. (Jonah 2 verse 9)  It is God who reaches to man in his sin.  A man in his sin cannot reach out to God for he is blinded by the devil of this world.  It is only a revelation of the gospel that brings salvation to man.  The Psalmist described it as being in a pit and his feet being on the miry clay.  He couldn’t get solid ground to stand on.  He was sinking all the time.  He cried out to the Lord and the Lord heard his cry.  The Lord lifted him out of the miry clay and set him on a solid rock.  The Lord does that for you tonight.  The rock tonight is Christ Jesus. He puts a new song in your mouth.  Are you coming face to face with the gospel of saving grace tonight?  In Acts 17 when Paul went to Thessalonica, he found those who were interested, concerned about their soul. They asked questions and he was willing to sit down and answer from God’s word.  He showed that Jesus must suffer and die on Calvary and be raised the third day.  For 3 Sabbaths he reasoned out of the scriptures building his case on the word of God.  He would go back to Genesis where God created Adam and Eve, how God gave them every tree in the garden to eat except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  From that day they ate from that tree they would surely die.  He would tell how the serpent came and told Eve she wouldn’t die but would become like God.  She ate of the tree and gave it to her husband, and both were exiled from the Garden that day.  God came and made coverings for their sin and nakedness.  Paul would take them right through to Isaiah 53 and show them the suffering servant, the one who would fulfil every sacrifice for mankind.  When Jesus offered that one sacrifice he sat down at his father’s side.  I can see Paul taking the people through these scriptures.  It was said of Timothy how that from a child he had known the holy scriptures which were able to make him wise unto salvation.  Paul said, “Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.” (1 Corinthians 1 verse 17)  The image of the cross hasn’t changed 2000 years later.  Suzanna Wesley, mother of Charles and John was the wife of a Church of England minister who was set in her ways but not saved.  She heard her son John preach on the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanseth for all sin.  She realised that she wasn’t saved, was still in her sin and was going out into a lost Christless eternity.  As she listened to her son she came to Christ and trusted him for her Saviour.  It is through the preaching of the gospel that we realise we have sinned and come short of God’s glory, that we realise that Christ came into the world to be the sacrifice for our sin.  If we never hear the gospel we can never be saved.

 

They were to receive the truth. When they heard the gospel, they were brought to the place of decision.  Those who trusted in Christ realised something they had to do with this.  In Acts 17 verse 4 we read “some of them believed”.  Paul realised there were those in the congregation who never trusted the Lord.  There were others who were totally changed.  We can be like the tares Jesus spoke of, happily growing together in the field. They go to church, read their bibles, do great things but there is no difference on the outward.  When God looks on these people, he looks on the inward man.  He knows whether people are saved or not.  Jesus was the sinless, perfect lamb of God who died on the cross to save a lost world.  He rose again from the dead and is seated with his Father in heaven today.  We can know all those things yet do nothing about it.  That is what it was like in the synagogue in Thessalonica – “but the Jews that believed not”.  In the synagogue there were those who believed and beside them there were those who did not believe.  In John chapter 18 verse 8 Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples when the crowd came to arrest him.  He told them “You seek me, let these go their way.”  He was referring to his disciples.  They took Jesus that day and crucified him.  I can go free as a result today because of Jesus’ death. 

 

A rejection of the past – verse 9.  It was plain to see in the lives of these people.  They had rejected the past and come to faith in Christ.  They had worshipped idols previously but now when they got saved, they set these to the one side.  They now embraced the Lord as Saviour.  That is a sure sign of your salvation - that you have turned from the past and come to the cross of Calvary.  The old things have passed away and all things are become new.  Remember the people in Ephesus – there were those who had come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Before they were involved in witchcraft and black magic.  In Acts 19 the people brought the books they had used in their witchcraft into the city centre and burned them.  They were getting rid of the past.

 

There is a radical change in their lives – verse 8.  Others had seen their faith in Christ.  What a change when Jesus comes in.  Here were a people who were showing the signs of true conversion. You have to hear the gospel, receive the word of God, turn away from the past and then there will be a change in your life.  Do others see the change in us, in our place of work, in our homes?

 

Are you saved tonight?  That is the most important question you could ever be asked.  Are you sure of your salvation?  The church will never take you to heaven nor can your pastor.  Only Christ can – will you trust him now?