Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Thessalonians 1 | Date: May 1, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Marks of Conversion

When the gospel came to them, Paul was not the only one preaching. Because our gospel came to you not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So when Paul preached the gospel to them in Thessalonica, the Spirit of God was pursuing the word and brought them to faith. Verse 6, he’s convinced of their election from God because as a result of the gospel, their lives were transformed. You became imitators of us and of the Lord. In fact, verse 6b, such was the transformation that they weren’t dissuaded from it even by the cost. You receive the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

So you get the picture here of these people coming out of paganism. Paul comes to town, he preaches the gospel, the Spirit of God pursues that word, and their coming to faith, responding to that gospel message in faith, entailed persecution from the past life, their family, their friends. And that did not dissuade them from it, and in fact, they received it in affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. There’s a mark of conversion.

Verse 7, we’re convinced of God’s election because you in fact became a model for believers everywhere. You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. Verse 8, in fact, the gospel has gone forth from you and is well known everywhere. Not only is the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere. So these are the marks of conversion in Thessalonica.

Verses 9 and 10 sum it up for us in broad terms, the effects of the gospel among them. They themselves—people outside of your area—they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. So here was their response to the gospel. This is conversion. They turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

The Doctrine Of Conversion

Now notice that again in verse 9. This gets to the heart of what we’re talking about in this doctrine of conversion. You turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God. Now that, in just a word, is the doctrine of conversion. It means turning. They turned. The word that’s translated conversion here is just the word that means to turn, or to turn around, to reverse directions. It’s used in all kinds of senses. In this sense it means conversion, a religious conversion. They’ve turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

Now in the King James Version, the older version, this word often when it’s used in this kind of a context is translated convert or conversion. Here in the ESV, it’s translated turn, or I think return a couple of times. Only one time is it translated conversion, and that is in Acts chapter 15 in verse 3 where it speaks of the turning of the Gentiles, obviously meaning the conversion of the Gentiles. But the word simply means to turn. Conversion is a turning, a turning around, a turning to God from idols, a turning to God to serve now the living and the true God.

And this, in fact, is a common biblical term. This terminology is used in both the Old and the New Testament. The requirement of all who would be saved is that they turn. They must turn around. In fact, let me give you a sense of some of the passages that speak of this. Isaiah 55:7 that I read earlier this morning: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord.” So there, turning or conversion is forsaking his way, the evil man forsaking his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord. He will have mercy on him. And turn to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Ezekiel 33: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel?” You see again, God pleading with Israel that they would be saved, and the requirement on their part is that they turn, they be converted. Matthew chapter 18, verse 3: “I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” That is, they must turn around. I think the King James there translates it, “be converted, become like children.” The idea there is that you must recognize your helplessness like a child, give up your sense of self-sufficiency, and turn and become like a child. Acknowledge your helplessness and turn in faith to the Lord Jesus.

We find this several times in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 3 verse 19: “Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.” Acts 3 verse 26: “God having raised up his servants sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” Acts 9 verse 35: “All the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and they turned to the Lord.” Acts 14 verse 15: Lycaonians called on here to turn from these things to the living God. Acts 26 verse 18: Paul’s mission to the Gentiles is described in these terms exactly. His mission was to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith.

So Paul’s ministry was to preach the gospel so that by it their eyes would be opened. There’s the doctrine of regeneration that we’ve seen before. And that their eyes may be opened so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. Well, this doctrine of conversion is expressed in just those terms of turning. Throughout the scriptures we find it several times in the book of Acts: turning to God, repent and turn, turn and be saved, turn around, go back the other direction. That’s the requirement for those who would be saved.

Often it’s used as simply the term repentance. Turning, turning away. My favorite illustration of conversion is a story from years and years ago where a guy was driving outside of London and he stopped along the road, wasn’t sure where he was, and he stopped along the road and asked the boy there, “Does this road lead to London?” And the boy said, “Yes it does, but you have to turn around and go the other way.” This is exactly the apostolic requirement and the message that they preach. The direction that you are going leads to hell. You’ve got to turn around. Turn to God, as we have here in verses 9 and 10, turn to God from idols.

So conversion then simply expresses the doctrine of salvation from the standpoint of our own experience and the standpoint of our response to the gospel. We turn. What we do in response when we hear the gospel, when we respond savingly, we turn. We turn from our sin. We turn from idols. We turn from our sense of self-sufficiency to God. Or as Paul says it in the book of Acts, repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Turn To God From Idols

Now note again the marks of conversion that we have here in verses 9 and 10. I think it summarizes it for us well. Paul says, I know that you’re chosen, you’re elect of God. And the reason I know that is because when I came and preached, I wasn’t the only one preaching. The Spirit of God was there and he pursued his word. And now, verse 9, you turned to God from idols. This is a predominantly Gentile church in Thessalonica, immersed in idol worship and paganism of various kinds; Paul says you’ve turned from those idols to God.

In principle, it’s the same for us. You might not have had gods of stone that you’ve bowed down to, but we have all had those things that we pursued away from God, and the essence of conversion is we’ve turned away from it and we’ve turned now to God. There’s a change. There’s a turnaround in trust, a turnaround in loyalties, a turnaround in our affections, a turnaround in our ambitions—turned away from all that used to mark us until now we turn to God and pursue him.

That’s verse 10. Turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. This is the terminology of slavery, where Paul speaks of himself as a willing bond-slave to Christ. This is the enthusiasm of wholeheartedness of Christian discipleship. I’ve given myself over to Christ and I’ve become a servant of his. Verse 10 again, at the end of the verse, not only did they turn to serve the living and true God, but it entails “to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” So here now they have turned from their idolatry, they’ve turned to God, they are serving God, and that service for God is marked by an eager anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ. This is what marks them. This is what Paul says is the marks of the genuineness of their conversion. There’s a new direction in their life. There’s a new purpose. There’s a new aim. They’ve repudiated their old way of life, their idolatry, their former way of living, and even at the cost of friendship and at some kind of persecution that he alludes to here, they’ve turned with joy in the Holy Spirit to serve Christ and eagerly to await his coming.

There in a nutshell then is the doctrine of conversion. Turning from and turning to. Turning around from sin and turning to God. Now you’ll notice then that this doctrine of conversion, we could analyze it further and see that it has both a positive and a negative side to it. They turn to God—there’s the positive—from idols—there’s the negative. They turn to God from idols. And in that twofold statement he gives us, he gives us a summary of the twin demands of the gospel. The twin demands of the gospel are believe and repent. Believe and repent. Turn to God from idols. Faith and repentance. These are the elements of conversion.

Faith is a turning to God, a trust in his promise in Christ, a looking to Christ as Savior, recognizing that he is the one who has paid the penalty of sin and that we have hope only in him. And so we, in Jesus’ words, become like little children and express our utter helplessness and turn in trust to Jesus to do for us what we can’t do ourselves. Turning to God. The other side of it is repentance from idols, turning from idols, from sin, from whatever it is that competes with loyalty to God, turning away from it and surrendering to God. It’s not just a fleeting moment of sorrow. Repentance involves that. But turning from it, it implies a life change, a turning around and a change of direction. It implies confession of sin, which one of the Puritans has, I think, very helpfully defined as taking sides with God against yourself. Confession of sin. There’s that side of it. There’s faith and repentance turning to God from idols.

Conversion is a decisive change and a radical reorientation of life. This is what it means to be converted. We’ve turned to God from idols and from sin. This change of direction that he’s talking about here is not just theoretical. It is not—and we should make this plain—it is not just making a decision. One of the curses of our age of evangelicalism is that we have confused genuine conversion with someone saying a prayer, making a decision, and assuming because they’ve said these words, this formula, they are genuinely converted. Paul tells us here that conversion consists in a changed life. Verse 6 again, as a result of the gospel, their lives were transformed. They became imitators of us and of the Lord. Verse 7, in fact, they became examples to all believers, all in the surrounding area of Macedonia and Achaia, but also around the world. Verses 9 and 10 summarize it. They turn to God from idols, and now they serve the living and the true God, and in fact what marks them is this eager anticipation of his Son from heaven.

That’s our response to the Spirit’s inner working of grace in conversion. He comes along with the preaching of the gospel, gives us an awareness of our sin, and in response we turn to God in faith and in repentance from sin. Conversion.

Faith And Repentance

Now some have often discussed the order: which is first, faith or repentance? Theologians like to analyze these things to death. Which comes first, faith or repentance? I suppose if I had to choose, I will say faith is first because genuine repentance can happen only in the context of faith. But the important point here is to remember that these two, faith and repentance, are absolutely inseparable. They are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have genuine faith in Christ apart from repentance any more than you can have saving repentance apart from faith in Jesus Christ. These two are inseparable.

And so often in the Book of Acts, we see this terminology used interchangeably. Sometimes in the Book of Acts, it’ll simply say, “believe in order to be saved.” Believe. At other times in the book of Acts, you’ll see “repent.” At other times in the book of Acts, you’ll see “believe and repent.” And other times in the book of Acts, you’ll see “turn. Be converted.” All of this refers to the same—it’s sometimes called the conversion complex. You have this complex of events going on. We hear the gospel, the Spirit is at work, and we respond with faith and repentance. Acts chapter 9 verse 35: “All the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.” There it’s used just the turning terminology. Acts 15:3 speaks of the conversion of the Gentiles. Conversion is the broad term. It consists of faith and repentance. This life, this change of direction in life, a change of loyalties, a change of ambitions, a change of affections, a turning.

Now this occasion of conversion in the New Testament is often described in terms of baptism. And so you’ll see some passages in the New Testament sometimes that are otherwise confusing. “Be baptized and wash away your sins.” Baptism spoken of as the means of salvation. I think the best way to understand that is to use more of a contemporary example in our culture and the evangelical culture that most of us grew up in. The way to be saved was to walk the aisle at an altar call. And so you walk the aisle and you make your decision. Now for all of that I think misleading in much of that, many people have come to Christ in that way. Many people have. I myself did. And I know that God can work in that way as well as others. But that then becomes the paradigm in evangelical circles as to how a person is saved. And so when you ask, “When were you saved?” the answer might be, “Well, I walked the aisle in 1973” or whatever, and what they mean was that is when I came to faith and repentance before God. Now, there are others who have misused that and they put their confidence in walking to the aisle, but in its best sense, that becomes the occasion of conversion. In the New Testament, the occasion of conversion was baptism. Here is where I express my faith in God and my repentance from sin. And so you see that terminology often in the New Testament.

The central emphasis of this doctrine of conversion is simply this matter of change. Turning. Turning around. Change. A change in life direction. And that change shows itself, first of all, in repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. A changed life. You’ve heard me talk a lot about the twin promises of the gospel: that the gospel offers us acceptance and justification on the one hand, and transformation on the other hand. Not only judicially are we accepted before God, but it promises to transform lives. This word conversion focuses on that latter aspect, the matter of a changed life because of Christ. One theologian of the early 19th century said, “It is of the very essence of Christianity that it has in it the power to make bad men good.” Now we can’t say that that’s all of the gospel. First of all, there’s this problem of standing right before God—justification. But it is nonetheless true as he says it that the gospel, it’s of the essence of it, that it has within it the power to make bad men good. It changes. It transforms.

Genuine Conversion

Those who are saved are those who have turned. There is such a thing as a spurious conversion. I think the most famous description of that is in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 19, where John speaks of those who were among us and now they’ve gone out from among us, that it might be shown that they were never part of us at all. There’s a spurious faith. We read in John chapter 8 of those who believed on Jesus while he was preaching. And then Jesus in response says, “If, if you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed.” The reality of faith is shown and demonstrated in a change of life and a change of direction in life.

It’s been a curse on our generation of evangelicals, the last generation or two, where you can just walk an aisle, sign a card, make a decision, and now the rest of your life you know you’re saved because the counselor told you, “Here in the corner of the flyleaf of your Bible, you remember the date now, you made this decision.” And it just skirts this whole idea of what conversion is. Conversion is a change of life, a turning around, a turning to God from sin. And what convinced Paul here in 1 Thessalonians 1, that the conversion of the Thessalonians was genuine, is that verse 5 and following, the gospel came in lasting, life-changing effects. Verse 6, their lives were transformed. They became imitators of us and of the Lord. They weren’t dissuaded by the persecution that came. Verse 7, they became examples to believers everywhere. Verse 8, the gospel has gone out from them to everywhere and everyone’s heard of their faith. Verses 9 and 10, they turn to God—why do I say that?—turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God waiting for his Son from heaven. That is the essence and the evidence of genuine conversion.

Now the next question then is how did this conversion come about? Clearly, it was their response to the gospel. The gospel was preached. They responded to that gospel message in faith and repentance. But notice it’s a little bit more complex than that. First of all, we find that the gospel was made effective by the Holy Spirit. We have these two factors at work. Verse 4: “We know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you.” How do we know that? “Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in full conviction, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord.”

So there are two factors at play here. There’s the gospel being preached, and there’s the work of the Holy Spirit. When Paul came to them, he said, I wasn’t the only one preaching. Secretly, the Spirit of God was at work, and the Spirit of God came and gave you illumination. He opened your eyes to see your sin. He opened your eyes to see the glory and the beauty and the value of Jesus. He opened your eyes to understand the truthfulness of the gospel that was being preached. And he ministered to you the sense of assurance that “If I entrust myself to Jesus, I will be saved.” That’s the Spirit of God at work secretly. We feel it, we sense it, we don’t know what’s going on. He’s at work. He gives us life. And then, along with that, the gospel being preached, there is the external response to it. Paul preached, the Spirit of God worked, and the Spirit of God working by the gospel is how it brought about this change in the lives of these people in Thessalonica.

It’s the Reformed emphasis that we’ve had that we’ve emphasized since the Reformation that is clearly found in the New Testament. It is not the gospel alone that is at work. It is not the Spirit of God alone who is at work, but it is the Spirit and the Word, the Spirit and the Word, the Spirit at work through the gospel being preached. You remember we saw this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. This gospel message, which the world thinks is utterly foolish, suddenly evokes a response of faith because they’re chosen of God and called by God to believe. Well, again, that’s the conversion complex, this complex of events going on at conversion. From the divine side, the Spirit of God is at work secretly giving conviction of sin, calling, giving life, giving assurance, giving renewal. And then from the human side, there’s conviction of sin sensed, and then there’s a response of repentance and faith.

And this is our experience. What all I’ve talked about is nothing theoretical. It’s what you’ve experienced, what I’ve experienced. And I want to mention though that the experience of conversion can vary. Conversion entails certain elements that are common to all of us. There’s conviction of sin, there’s calling and all of that. That’s not to say that we all experience it in the same way. Timothy was not saved in the same way. His conversion experience was not the same as that of Saul of Tarsus. These things vary. It’s not always immediately discernible how it comes about or even when it comes about. And this is important to recognize because there have been many evangelists over the last couple of generations who have pressed congregations with, “If you don’t remember the hour, if you don’t remember the date, if you don’t remember when this came about, then you’re lost.” The Bible never says anything like that. I myself had a very much a Damascus Road kind of experience. Dramatic, dramatic invasion of God’s grace drawing me to Christ. My wife will tell you that she does not remember an occasion; she remembers a period of time. And there’s a before and after. But how it came about?

But you see, those questions are secondary. Let me give you a couple of illustrations. I think it’s worthwhile looking at them from the history of the church. Here’s Augustine talking about his dramatic moment. It’s a famous passage in his Confessions: “I heard from a neighboring house a voice, as of a boy or girl I know not, chanting and oft-repeating, ‘take up and read, take up and read.’ Instantly, my countenance altered. I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words, nor could I remember ever to have heard the like of it. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command of God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. I seized and opened and in silence read that passage upon which my eyes fell first.” And here what he fell on was Romans 13, verses 13 and 14: “Not in orgies or drunkenness, not in sexual immorality or sensuality, not in quarreling or jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” “No further would I read, nor needed I. For instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity, infused my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” A dramatic moment of conversion, a decisive moment that he experienced.

Now let me give you another one from J.C. Ryle, a 19th century Anglican bishop. Some of you may have Ryle’s works like this expository reflection to the gospel and some other things as well. “The circumstances which led to a complete change in my character were very many and very various, and I think it right to mention them. It was not a sudden, immediate change, but very gradual. I cannot trace it to any one person, any one event, or any one thing, but to a singular variety of persons and things. In all of them, I believe now the Holy Spirit was working, though I did not know it at the time.” I don’t know anyone who’d say to J.C. Ryle that because you don’t remember the occasion, your conversion is not genuine.

All of that to say experience varies. For some of us, it was a very memorable event. For others, it isn’t. But the one thing that all Christians have in common is that we’ve turned. We’ve turned to God. We’re resting in Jesus Christ alone. There’s been faith and there’s repentance. And this is why Lloyd-Jones famously answered when he was asked, “What is a Christian? What’s the definition of a Christian?” He said, “I think the definition of a Christian is a Christian is one who has been broken.” There’s some insight to that, that we are people who have recognized sin and we’ve turned from it to trust in Jesus Christ.

Awareness of the event at the moment, all of that is a secondary question. The question is not, “Do you remember when?” And don’t let anyone confuse you with that. The question that matters is, are you one who has turned? You’ve turned from sin and you’ve turned to God in faith and repentance. If not, then you have no reason to think you’re a Christian. I don’t care what card you have signed, what decisions you say you have made, if there’s not been a turning, if there’s not a reorientation of life toward Christ, you have no reason to think that you’re saved. But if, on the other hand, you can see that for all of my sins and all of my failures and all of my inconsistencies in it, my heart and my life is oriented to Christ. There has been a turn, and I want more than ever to serve Christ. And that ought to be an occasion of praise, that God has begun a good work in you, and he will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.