“What is true faith? True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace, granted solely by Christ’s merit.”
Which of these three options best describes coming to faith? The first has to do with overcoming hostility. Imagine a boy who really likes a girl. She wants nothing to do with him but by interaction after interaction, he wins her over. He overcomes her hostility. Overcoming hostility is your first option to describe coming to faith.
The second option has to do with anything coming out of nothing. You can imagine the creation of the universe if you would like. There used to be nothing and now you can look around at all that exists. Something coming from nothing is your second option to describe coming to faith.
The third option has to do with changing your mind. I want you to imagine a scientist who changes her mind after considering the evidence. She used to think one way about a particular chemical compound, but now after researching it, she thinks different. She has changed her mind. Changing your mind is your third option to describe coming to faith.
Now which of those options best describes coming to faith—overcoming hostility, something coming out of nothing, or changing your mind? The answer is that all three of them best describe coming to faith.
Coming to faith involves God overcoming your sinful and, oh so natural, hostility to Him the way that boy overcame that girl’s hostility. Coming to faith involves belief coming out of nothing the way the universe came to exist of nothing. Coming to faith involves changing your mind the way a scientist does based on new information.
The way in which an individual comes to saving faith is the focus of this evening’s sermon. If you have saving faith in Jesus, please consider your own conversion. Consider the conversion for which you pray for others. We will see that the Holy Spirit overcomes incredible hostility for the sake of faith. We will see that the Holy Spirit creates this faith out of nothing. We will see that the man who comes to faith does so by means of changing his mind by means of the gospel.
The Holy Spirit creates faith in resistant human hearts by way of the gospel. That is the claim of this sermon: the Holy Spirit creates faith in resistant human hearts by way of the gospel.
We will study this in three points. First: the resistant human heart. Second: creating faith out of nothing. Third: believing the gospel.
First: the resistant human heart. This is not our first study of the Catechism. It is our twelfth in this series and throughout this series we’ve seen that we humans have a problem that is insurmountable as far as we’re concerned, and that problem is sin. We are born with sinful hearts and minds. We will not do what God calls us to do. We have a natural tendency to oppose God’s will and to prefer ourselves to others. We’ve seen that God will and must hold us responsible for this sin because if He were to do otherwise He would cease to be holy; He would cease to be just. We’ve seen that God has dealt with this sin by way of the cross. We’ve seen that people can have this forgiveness of sins by way of faith in Christ crucified.
One problem remains: the human heart will not trust God and, as we’ve seen, trust is part of faith. By nature, people will not draw near to God. This is how Jesus’ friend John explained it, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
People who do what is evil don’t want to step into the light. Not only have we all done what is evil but we all do what is evil and so we don’t want to step into the light. We do not want to draw near to God. We are hostile to Him and so we won’t put our faith in Him.
That is the way John describes the life of Jesus, “in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it… He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
The Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus was the most natural response imaginable. Don’t be amazed that experts of the law disagreed with the God who gave the law. Don’t be amazed that the powers that be conspired to put the king of kings and lord of lords to death. By nature, people do not and will not trust God. By nature, people do not and will not come to the light.
If a woman is ever to come to faith, God must overcome her distrust. He must overcome her hostility. He must overcome her desire to run from the light.
God overcomes this hostility by giving men and women new hearts. Speaking through Ezekiel to those who clearly wanted nothing to do with Him, God said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
People do not come to faith from a neutral position. They come to faith out of hostility to God. They come to trust God out of distrust for God. They are like a long abused foster child who now cannot stand the experience of love in his new home.
Now, you did not come to faith from a neutral position. You came to faith in Christ out of hostility to God. Think of it in terms of an automatic transmission. You were not born in neutral gear with the option to shift up into reverse or down into drive. You were not born in neutral with the option to shift into godliness or into ungodliness. You were born in reverse. You were born in ungodliness. You were born with a resistance to shifting into godliness. You were born a heart that was used to sin; righteousness seemed inhospitable and uninviting to you. If you are saved by faith, it is only because God has changed your heart.
You came to faith because you had a change of heart. Solomon referred to this change of heart when prophesying about the exiles. He prayed, ‘if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, “We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly”; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.’
The people would be hostile to God, but Solomon prayed that they would have a change of heart and come back to God. A change of heart is necessary for hostility to be overcome.
Now Solomon spoke of this change of heart with an active voice; the people had a change of heart. Ezekiel spoke of this change with a passive voice; a new heart was put in the people. This change of heart involves action on God’s part and on your part. In other words, it is really you coming to God and it is all the work of God.
Peter makes this clear. On Pentecost, the people ask what they must do to be saved. Peter doesn’t say, ‘well, you can really do nothing. It is all of the Spirit.’ He says, “repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” This promise is for all whom the Lord will call, so come.
Peter was just following his master. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them,” and he said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” In essence, he says, “nobody can come unless the Father draws them so come.”
The Holy Spirit calls you to come. “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come! I come!” The Holy Spirit changes your inner resistance by giving you a new heart so that you will come. “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch; like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
Coming to faith necessitates overcoming your hostility to God. Has your resistance been overcome? Or are you still telling yourself you’ve never been hostile God? Or are you still resisting the God before whom you will one day stand? Coming to faith necessitates overcoming your resistance. Coming to faith also involves the creation of something out of nothing. That is our second point: creating faith out of nothing.
Coming to faith doesn’t involve merely increasing an inner strength which is already present. It isn’t as if some people are so close to faith on their own that if only they were to try a bit harder, they could become Christians. The fact is that people have nothing within them out of which faith can arise. Scripture says that by nature people are “dead in sin.” We have as much spiritual life within us as a dead has biological life within himself.
The raw ingredients of faith are not native to the human heart. This is why the Catechism says, “[faith] is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me.” The Holy Spirit must create faith within a man because that faith will not arise on its own.
This means that any act of coming to faith involves a miracle. Any conversion is as miraculous as that which happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul had nothing within him that would lead to faith in Christ. Jesus spoke to him and created faith out of nothing. Jesus didn’t merely increase the amount of spiritual life that was within Paul. Paul was dead in his sins and dead people by definition of have no spiritual life. If you have come to Christ, the Holy Spirit has created faith within you out of nothing.
People like to talk about their spiritual lives, but the fact is that people are spiritually dead until they have the Holy Spirit. Now this is not to disparage the insights that poets and mystics who have no share in Christ. By way of common grace, we humans can perceive some remarkable truths about the human spirit, but this does not make us alive.
If you would have asked Saul of Tarsus if he was spiritually alive, he would have said, ‘of course.’ He would have pointed to his love for the law of God. He would have pointed to his obedience. If you would have asked that same man, the apostle Paul, if he was spiritually alive when he was Saul of Tarsus, he would have said, ‘I thought I was, but I wasn’t.’ He would have said, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”
There is no spiritual life without the Holy Spirit. You see this in the new heart. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” A heart of stone is dead. A heart of flesh is alive. Coming to faith is a transition from no life to life.
Jesus spoke about this transition as being born again. “Very truly I tell you,” said Jesus, “no man can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Now we consider conception to be an act of something coming out of nothing. Yes, there is the sperm and the ovum, but the soul is something from nothing. It is an act of God. When holding their newborn baby, parents marvel at the fact that they were involved with creating a new life.
With a baby, there was a moment of conception. With a born-again man, there was a moment of coming to faith. There was a moment when nothing became something.
The apostle Paul uses creation out of nothing language to refer to coming to faith. He hearkens back to the first day of creation, saying, ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.’ God said, “let there be light,” and there was light. God said, “let there be faith in Christ,” and there was faith in Christ.
This means that if you have faith in Christ, you have experienced a miracle that exceeds creation itself. Now, you rightly marvel at the intricacies of a baby’s fingers. You are rightly amazed by the scope of this universe in which you find yourself. You are rightly in awe of the fact that God spoke of all of this into being. You ought to be more amazed that God spoke your faith into being out of nothing because you were by nature hostile to Him. It is true that you were born again from nothing within you and it is true that what was within you was hostile to grace and ran from the light. If you have faith in Christ, please be amazed at what the Holy Spirit has done within you. That is God’s proper due.
If you do not have faith in Christ, recognize that this miracle could be yours. You could no longer feel the compulsion to justify yourself to God, to others, or to yourself. You could be justified. You could no longer feel the compulsion to better yourself under your own power. You could be sanctified. You could no longer feel the compulsion to make yourself what you ought to be. You could be glorified. As you know, that will take a miracle. If it didn’t require a miracle, you would have done it by now. You would have justified yourself. You would have made yourself what you ought to be, but you haven’t because you can’t. You need a miracle. You are dead and you need to be made alive.
God doesn’t simply create faith out of nothing. He uses means. He doesn’t create faith out of nothing one way in the apostle Paul and another way in you. He doesn’t create faith out of nothing one way in you and another way in your sister. He uses the same means and it only makes sense that if we know what this means is that the most loving thing we could do would be to share this means with the whole world. This means is the gospel. That is our final point: believing the gospel.
God doesn’t simply create faith out of nothing. He uses means. He uses the gospel. He brings death into live by means of the gospel. Think of it in terms of a defibrillator. The defibrillator is the means by which the power of electric current is transmitted to a lifeless heart in order to bring it to life. Now the gospel is the means by which the power of the Holy Spirit is transmitted to a lifeless soul to bring it to life. The gospel is the defibrillator unto salvation. [I have been told that this defibrillator illustration is not correct; the defibrillator evidently stops the heart altogether allowing it to restart on its own - so it seems like a better illustration for rebooting than receiving].
The Catechism refers to this use of means by saying that, “[true faith] also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel.” The gospel is that which is used to bring the lifeless heart to life just as a defibrillator is that which is used to bring the lifeless heart to life.
The Spirit brings people to faith in Jesus by means of the gospel. He doesn’t bring people to faith by means of a near-death experience. He doesn’t bring people to faith in Jesus by means of a trance. He doesn’t bring people to faith in Jesus by means of personal epiphanies. The Spirit brings people to faith in Jesus by means of the gospel.
So what is the gospel? We could spend weeks upon weeks defining the gospel, and perhaps one year we will, but for now we will just hear from those who have come before us. “At its briefest, the gospel is a discourse about Christ,” wrote Martin Luther; “he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, and that he has been established as Lord over all things.” So the gospel is the story of Jesus and what it has to do with us.
“The Gospel,” says John Piper, “is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy.” So the gospel is the news of what Jesus has done and what it has to do with us.
The Spirit brings people to faith in Jesus by means of the story of Jesus and what it has to do with us. he Spirit brings people to faith in Jesus by means of the news of what Jesus has done and what it has to do with us.
This is why churches tell the story of Jesus. “Tell me the story of Jesus,” as the hymn goes, “write on my heart every word; tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.” Churches don’t tell and retell the story of Jesus because we can’t think of anything else to say. We tell and retell the story of Jesus because nothing that we can think of to say will bring people to saving faith. The Spirit uses the gospel.
If you have come to saving faith in Jesus, it didn’t happen by means of simply sitting in a sanctuary for a requisite number of hours. It didn’t happen by means of merely being born into a Christian home. It happened by means of hearing the gospel and believing the gospel.
The early church was clear that men, women, and children come to saving faith by means of believing the gospel and if we can’t agree with the early church what right do we have to call ourselves Christians? We have no right to determine what Christianity is or is not. That has already been done.
The early church told this story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what it has to do with humanity all over the world because they loved the people of the world and wanted them to be saved from sin. As Paul told the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” Near the end of that letter, he told them, God “gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”
Paul wasn’t confused as to what the gospel was. On his missionary journeys, he told people about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what it had to do with them. Peter and John did the same, “After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.”
People need to hear about Jesus in order to believe in Jesus. As Paul put it, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?”
The Holy Spirit does create faith out of nothing native within us. The Spirit does overcome our innate hostility to and distrust of God. He does it by means of the gospel. He does it by telling us about God’s love. “God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” We so often make it harder than it needs to be.
Perhaps you need to examine this story of Jesus. Perhaps you haven’t really examined the evidence. You haven’t really read the gospels. Part of coming to faith is examining the evidence like a scientist. Part of coming to faith is changing your mind. This is the means by which the Holy Spirit will create faith within you. This is the means by which the Holy Spirit will overcome your hostility to God. If what I have just said is true for you, believe the good news that Jesus came to save sinners. You are a sinner who needs saving.
If you have been saved, give God His proper due for all He has done in you. Love Him. He overcome your hostility so that you would. Trust Him. He overcame your distrust so that you would. Live to please Him. He creates faith within you so that you will. Amen.
“Vivamus pellentesque vitae neque at vestibulum. Donec efficitur mollis dui vel pharetra.”