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Before reading our text together this morning, here’s what Charles Spurgeon said about it: “These two verses struck me as singularly full. Oceans of teaching are to be found in them.”
1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.
Have you ever had a heart conversion? I have. When I went for surgery a couple years ago, they got me all prepped, checking vital signs, and more. They hooked me up to monitor my heart and to their surprise and mine, my heart was fluttering. Irregular, arrhythmia. That put surgery on hold temporarily. The very kind attending nurse sat next to me tracking everything on the monitor when suddenly she said, all excitedly, “You’ve converted! Your heart just converted.” I said, “Yes, I am converted. I’m glad I’m converted.” But she meant my physical heart had converted to a normal heart rhythm, and we went forward with the surgery.
Paul in our text describes true conversion. These converted Thessalonians turned to God (that’s faith) from idols (that’s repentance) to serve God and wait for Jesus from heaven. One author said this may be “the fullest account of Christian conversion in the New Testament.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote, “The conversion of a soul is by far the most remarkable event in the history of the world.”
When you have a church full of truly converted people, you have great joy and enthusiasm for God and His Word. The Great Awakening in the 1730s and 40s saw the conversion of many early American colonists through the preaching of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others. Jonathan Edwards described his church of about 200 families in North Hampton, Massachusetts like this: “Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth.”
Isn’t’ that wonderful? They were much like these Thessalonians. They were so excited about their salvation they rejoiced and spread the Word to the point that Paul says everywhere he went people were talking about it (vs. 8). God’s Spirit worked mightily in the lives of these people, resulting in true conversion. And God is still doing the great work of changing hearts and lives through the gospel right now, right here, and around the globe today.
TRUE CONVERSION IS A WORK OF GOD
Before we go any further, we must realize no person can convert another person or his own heart. You can’t create conversions – it is a work of God. Heart conversion isn’t the effect of a technique or high-pressure tactics, or going forward, or raising your hand, or signing a card. If you are a new creation in Christ and have experienced true conversion, you are God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10). Conversion is the outward evidence of the inward work of regeneration through the power of the Holy Spirit in the gospel message. Paul already told us he thanked God for these Thessalonians who were beloved and chosen by God. He knew they were because the gospel had come to them in power and in the Spirit in their hearts. They were converted, changed. And when pressure and persecution mounted up, their joy in the Word by the Spirit mounted right up with it.
So what does genuine spiritual conversion look like? I want to personalize this for us through a sort of a verbal video of true conversion. Put yourself in the main character of the video and then ask yourself, “Is this true of me? Am I truly converted?”
#1 THE CONVERTED MAN MAKES A 180-DEGREE TURN TO GOD
The first thing about the man in this video is he turned to God from idols, a total and radical turnaround. He was going one way, then turned 180 degrees, and now he is going in the opposite direction. He didn’t just add something to his life. He turned completely around, 180 degrees. This is repentance – a complete change of mind, will, heart, and allegiance. He was going his own way, living for his own desires, and now he has turned around and is living for God.
The word “turned” is used frequently of turning to God. This is what the gospel ministry does. It calls people to turn to God from idols. In Acts 26:18 Paul said Christ sent him to preach the gospel to Jews and Gentiles.
Acts 26:18, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’
Our converted video man turned to God. He didn’t turn to a new philosophy or system or religion or any human scheme for a better life. He turned to God. He didn’t know God before, but now the entire stance of his life is in a personal relationship with God through the gospel.
The result of his turning to God was that he turned from idols. This is huge. This is that great conversion miracle M’Cheyne talked about when a man turns to God from idols. This converted man believed the gospel and repented from his idols. Remember in Luke 15 Jesus gave three stories about lost things being found – a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Jesus said, “There is joy in heaven over every soul that repents.” J. C. Ryle said, “There is an infinite willingness on God’s part to receive sinners…. God has pleasure in true repentance.”
As our converted man turned to God, he turned away from his idols. All the things that had ruled his heart and what he had lived for no longer rule. God now rules His heart and desires. He may struggle with a heart that still craves selfish satisfaction, but he is no longer a slave to his idols. His desires to fulfill his own lust, to take out his frustrations on other people, and wanting his own way changed. Things that his heart had loved and desired and longed for are no longer ruling his heart. He is now a converted man, a changed man, a new man. The grace of God brought new life to his heart and he made a radical 180-degree heart level turn around to God! He didn’t just have a change of mind; he had a change of allegiance to the living and true God.
And notice, he didn’t turn from idols first. It was first God who gave him a new heart and the result was that he left his idols in the wastebasket. These Thessalonians lived in a culture thick with idols. One author said there were gods and goddesses available to suit everyone’s taste in gods. The Thessalonians could actually see Mt. Olympus fifty miles to the south where the Greek gods supposedly lived – Zeus, Hermes, Neptune, Aphrodite. Paul reported that Athens was a city full of idols (Acts 17:16). The converted man now rejects whatever idols had captured and ruled his heart in the past. Idols are heart god-replacements. We have plenty of them today: the idols of “My Happiness” or “I Deserve It” or “Personal Security” or “I’m a Victim.” When you get angry or jealous or envious or bitter, these sinful reactions expose the idols of your heart, which is mainly self-love. We could add all the cultural idols like the almighty dollar or reproductive rights or the sacred cows of universal approval of moral diversity, global warming, evolution, and many more. Calvin said, “The human heart is an idol factory.” An idol is anything that drives our heart to love it and live for it more than loving and living for God.
A truly converted, born again man turns to God from idols. His old values and entertainment and desires to fulfill his lusts changed. Those idols no longer rule his heart, although they may keep trying to climb back on the throne of his heart. True conversion doesn’t mean he’ll coast into heaven without conflicts and temptations. He didn’t earn heaven; it was God’s free gift. But now he wants to fight against those idols that swayed him. He no longer loves the world like he did. He made a 180 degree turn around to God from idols. His focus is now pleasing God, not self. Is this true of you? Have you made the 180 degree turn around toward God and are now living to please Him rather than yourself?
#2 THE CONVERTED MAN SERVES THE LIVING AND TRUE GOD
If conversion doesn’t result in serving the living and true God, it is a bogus conversion. Jesus told us about those three soils where it looked like conversion for a while, but there was no lasting fruit. There was no heart renewal. People can outwardly conform to religious practices, but if their heart (their “want to”) isn’t changed, there is no true conversion. One day a drunk staggered up to Mr. Moody, “Hey, I’m one of your converts.” Moody replied, “You must be because you’re certainly not the Lord’s convert.” True conversion always leads to the fruit of serving the true, living God. Our truly converted man lives every day with God front and center in his mind. He no longer lives for some dead human idea or myth or philosophy or religion. He delights to serve his God.
His God is living. How do we know He’s living? Ask those Baal prophets on Mt. Carmel in 1 Kings 18 whose God was living when they called on Baal to send fire from heaven. “O Baal, answer us!” Silence. “Come on Baal, we need you right now!” Silence. Elijah encourages them to yell louder, “Maybe Baal is sleeping or going to the bathroom.” So they yelled louder and even slashed themselves till blood spurted out to let Baal know how serious they were. But they had one huge disadvantage – Baal doesn’t exist. He’s a hoax, a religious nothing burger. We have Baal prophets today: “Oh time and chance, show us how you brought everything into existence from nothing and made us evolve from apes.” Silence. “We know you are there. Please speak.” Silence. When Elijah prayed to his God, “Whoosh!” Flames licked and consumed the wood, stone, dust, water, everything! Our God is living. What about Goliath? David said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” (1 Sam. 17:26). Goliath quickly met the living God when a stone sunk deeply into his forehead! Thunk! Our God is the living God who created the heavens and the earth! Look at the DNA strand. Look at the design of your eye or ear or lacrimal glands. Our God is evident in all He created and is involved in all of it – living, caring, speaking, ruling. And those who are converted know God is the living God and thirst for Him and desire to know Him.
Psalm 42:2a, My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Psalm 84:2b, My heart and my soul thirst for the living God.
The converted man’s God is the one and only living God. All those idols he formerly thought were so great are dead and worthless. They can’t see or hear or speak. Spurgeon said, “A dead God is a mere mockery; we loathe such a monstrous deity; but the ever-living God, the perennial fountain of life and light and love, is our soul’s desire.” When you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, He satisfies your soul just like those water brooks satisfied the panting deer in Psalm 42:1. You wouldn’t marry a corpse, would you? So why would you worship a dead god? The convert who we are watching has a living God who is responsive, present right here and right now. He is all powerful, all wise, sovereignly ruling over all of His creation, communicating through His Word, working in our convert’s heart to will and do of His good pleasure.
His God is the true God, the God who really is who He says He is. His God isn’t a figment of his imagination. All other so-called gods are fakes, frauds, false, products of either the devil or man’s perverted, spiritually depraved imagination. Our convert’s God is the true existing God who is really present with him.
Jeremiah 10:10,12, But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.12 It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; and by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.
Jesus prayed, “This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God” (John 17:3). We know He is the true God because at a point in history the second Person of the Godhead stepped down from His throne, laid aside His divine prerogatives, and humbled Himself to join the human race through a young Jewess. He lived, breathed, ate, slept, served, loved, taught, suffered, was murdered, buried, rose again, and went back up to the right hand of God as the God-Man. He’s the true God.
He is serving his living and true God. True conversion leads to serving. Since he turned to God from idols he gets up every day knowing this day counts with his living God. Now he goes off to work serving his God while providing for his family. He realizes his God has given him gifts and abilities and opportunities to serve others and he is finding joy in serving God by serving others. He isn’t a spectator in the bleachers. No, he’s involved with others with his sleeves rolled up like a joyful, willing slave, doing his God’s will. He loves his true and living God who first loved him, chose him, called him through the gospel, forgave him of all his sins, and for the rest of his life he has this high and holy calling to serve his God and Lord! He desires his life to bring glory to God! He tries to spread the gospel message to others in his life. He knows conversion is a work of God, so he prays to God for others to be converted. And the most wonderful blessing of all is if God should use him to win another sinner to Christ. He wants to do his best to sow the seed of the gospel. Whether he eats or drinks or whatever he does, he wants to do all to the glory of his living and true God.
Are you seeing yourself in this “video of a true convert?”
#3 THE CONVERTED MAN WAITS FOR JESUS TO RETURN FROM HEAVEN
1 Thessalonians 1:10, and to wait for His Son from (out of) heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.
What’s he looking forward to? Not a Bugatti or a lake house in Michigan or to spend his final days, every day, all day, in his La-Z-Boy watching reruns of the Andy Griffith Show or Colombo or Monk or the Beverly Hillbillies. He isn’t even just waiting for heaven or eternal life. He’s waiting to see Jesus face to face! He understands Jesus has gone away temporarily until the time is fulfilled when He will come back out of the heavens into the clouds, the earth’s atmosphere, to “catch up” or rapture the church and take us to be with Him (1 Thess. 4:16-17). This is the major theme of both 1 and 2nd Thessalonians.
Paul reminds us in verse 10b that God raised His Son from the dead and He ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us. He’s out there now, ready and eager to come back for us, and He could return at any moment. John Calvin in the Institutes wrote, “Let us not hesitate to await the Lord’s coming with longing and sighs, as the happiest thing of all.” Our converted friend has no ultimate hopes in this world. He knows he’s here temporarily and knows death isn’t the end. He is waiting eagerly for Jesus to return.
First Thessalonians 1:10c says, “He rescues us from the wrath to come.” There will be no wrath for our convert or any of God’s redeemed people. God’s wrath is His holy hatred and vengeance on all sin. Jesus Himself took the wrath of God that we deserve when He died on the cross. It was there that He bore our sins and satisfied God’s wrath our sins deserve. God’s wrath hangs over every person born on this earth because everyone is born with a sin nature passed on from Adam. Every person’s hope is to trust Jesus to be his Savior from God’s wrath. John 3:36 says, “He who has the Son has life but he who does not have the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.” When a person dies without turning to Christ, all he has to look forward to is wrath. God says He will pour out His wrath during the tribulation period which will come in the future. The last seven judgments are called the bowls of wrath. Revelation 19:15 tells us when Christ returns at His second coming to earth, He will come to “tread the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.” Finally, following the thousand-year reign of Christ, God will send fire from heaven on the devil and his followers, and all lost people will then stand before the Great White Throne and be consigned to the lake of fire, the final and eternal wrath of God.
But our converted friend knows he is in the eternal love of God in Christ because God promises that in His Word, the Bible. He knows through Christ’s resurrection he too will live. This wrath of God, this awful punishment for all who offend God, is certainly coming – “the wrath to come.” And there is no escape for those outside of Christ. But for our convert, through Christ there is no condemnation on his sins anymore, forever and ever. He knows within himself he is the chief of sinners and deserves the wrath of God just like all the rest. But through Christ who died and rose again for him, he knows he has been converted and born again into a new creation, justified before the Holy God, and without a shadow of a doubt will be rescued from the coming wrath. For this he is inexpressibly and eternally thankful.
Our conversion video is ending. By the grace of God our convert turned to God from idols in the past, he’s serving the living and true God in the present, and he’s waiting for Christ’s return in the future. All of this because God’s sovereign grace gave him that new heart that resulted in his true conversion from unbelief to trusting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
SO WHAT?
Are you this person? Is this true of you? As you have followed the video of this man’s conversion, did you see yourself? Are you the changed person Paul is describing? Has the gospel come with heart-changing power into your life? Has God changed you and given you a love for Him and His Word?
While everyone’s Christian life unfolds differently, true conversion definitely includes turning to God, turning from self, and then serving God and waiting for Jesus to return. If this doesn’t describe you, I urge you to come to Christ now. Only He can give you rest and peace. Only He can rescue you from the coming wrath. Turn from going your own way and put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Then begin a life knowing Him through the study of His words in the Bible. You will want to serve Him and look for Christ’s imminent, any moment return. If you’d like to talk about your salvation, please see me or any of the elders.