Conversion

The health of a church can be measured by its understanding of conversion, as it flows naturally from a right understanding of the gospel. In this lesson, Dr. Dever discusses how biblical conversion is possible and why it is necessary.

OUTLINE

A. A biblical understanding of conversion is a mark of a healthy church, yet the need for and possibility of conversion is often looked on with suspicion outside of the church.

1. People are skeptical that change is possible.

a. People have come to believe that personality and the various vices that go along with it are entirely fixed.

b. People have come to believe that maturity is the ability to accept and adapt to our fixed internal circumstances.

2. Conversion seems suspicious to those who subscribe to a deterministic worldview.

a. Offering a hope that change is possible seems manipulative in a society that insists that we only need to embrace who we are.

b. Offering a hope that change is possible seems to be an invitation to self-hatred.

3. Despite this, people have a deep longing for change.

a. Work, marriage, family, gender, and death become nothing more than choices, and people find themselves hopeless and defeated.

b. Conversion confronts the feeling of having nowhere left to turn.

B. Conversion is a real change.

1. Conversion is turning from ourselves to Christ.

a. Conversion is turning from our self-serving, self-trusting sin to trusting only in Christ to reconcile us to God.

b. Paul summarizes conversion as repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).

2. Conversion is God’s work, and understanding this is vital for evangelism and the health of the church.

a. Evangelism that is rooted in an unbiblical understanding of conversion will likely lead to false converts and sick churches.

b. A biblical understanding of conversion encourages evangelism that trusts in God, whose Word accomplishes His purposes in making true converts and healthy churches (Isa. 55:11).

C. Conversion is a real need.

1. People reject their need for change, preferring to remain complacent than to respond to the call to repent and believe.

a. Churches must be clear that the Bible teaches that, by nature, we have a problem.

b. People are totally depraved—every aspect of their being has been touched by the fall.

2. People need God—our condition is described in terms of debt, slavery, and death, and no one will be justified apart from Him (Rom. 3:20).

3. People need to hear sermons that reflect an understanding of these needs.

D. Conversion is good news.

1. We are in desperate need of God’s grace, yet God owes His grace to no one.

2. An understanding of our predicament and serious conviction of sin is part of conversion.

3. Conversion is good news because change is possible and found only in God.

a. We do not change ourselves, but rather renounce our autonomy and acknowledge God.

b. We recognize our need for forgiveness and God-oriented lives, experiencing both a change of mind and a change of heart.

E. Conversion is resting in Christ.

1. Conversion is relying on Christ and His righteousness.

a. Conversion is not our own attempt to be justified before God; nothing we do can make us righteous before Him.

b. Recognizing our sin forces us to recognize that we are desperate apart from Christ.

2. Conversion is true hope in God’s work in Jesus Christ—He sought us, lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and poured out His Spirit into our hearts.

3. Reliance on God is the greatest change that takes place in true conversion.

a. God promised to give us new hearts through His Spirit so that we would repent and believe (Ezek. 11:19–20).

b. We are able to accept the truths of God because He has given us a new heart, and it was all His work (John 6:44).

F. Conversion is new birth.

1. Jesus gives us a whole new life and taught that our action in conversion must be brought about by God’s action.

a. Joel prophesied great judgment against unbelieving Israelites and yet offered the hope that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13).

b. An unbeliever would only desire to call upon God because “among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls” (Joel 2:32).

G. A biblical understanding of conversion marks a healthy church.

1. A common misunderstanding is that conversion is something we do, but conversion is more than our action alone.

2. True conversion is the heart-transplanting work of God’s Spirit, a change that only God can bring about.

QUIZ

1. Many of the marks of a healthy church hinge on expositional preaching (T/F)
   

2. Expositional preaching is often contrasted with ___________ preaching.
   

3. The heart of expository preaching is ____________.
   

4. The Holy Spirit does not use means to grow God’s people. (T/F)
   

5. Which Bible prophet was used as an example of expository preaching?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Being totally depraved means that we are as bad as we could possibly be (T/F)
   

2. ________ summarized conversion as repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
   

3. People often reject the ___________ and the ___________ of conversion.
   

4. A biblical understanding of conversion says that it is our own doing (T/F)
   

5. The Bible uses __________ as an image of our natural state.
   

6. True conversion enables us to say with ________, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”