I Didn’t Treasure Christ When I First Believed

00:00:00.000 | Well, at DesiringGod.org, we talk a lot about joy and treasuring as being an ingredient

00:00:10.360 | to saving faith, part of what saving faith is, the treasuring of Christ.

00:00:15.440 | And it raises questions like this one from a listener named Nick.

00:00:18.040 | "Hello Pastor John, thank you for answering so many questions on this podcast.

00:00:21.680 | Here's mine.

00:00:22.680 | I recently discovered what you believe the Bible says about saving faith, namely that

00:00:27.180 | it includes treasuring Jesus above all things.

00:00:30.800 | This has made me wonder if I truly believed at the time of my apparent conversion.

00:00:35.520 | I saw growing signs of holiness in my life after my apparent conversion, and obeying

00:00:40.040 | God has been the number one pursuit of my life for years, but I don't recall being aware

00:00:44.800 | of my desire for God himself in my heart over the early years after what I think was my

00:00:50.840 | conversion.

00:00:51.980 | If I did not begin treasuring Jesus when my apparent conversion happened, was I really

00:00:57.740 | unsaved?"

00:00:58.740 | Pastor John, what would you say to Nick?

00:01:00.820 | Well, the first thing that needs to be said, I think, is that Nick should not lose any

00:01:07.660 | sleep over the question whether he was truly saved, truly born again in that first moment

00:01:15.540 | of apparent faith.

00:01:17.300 | The all-important question for all of us is the question of right now.

00:01:24.300 | Do we embrace Jesus now as the Lord and Savior and supreme treasure of our lives?

00:01:35.860 | When and how we came to have this glorious, miraculous preference for Jesus above all

00:01:44.020 | things, this submission to Jesus as Lord, is relatively unimportant.

00:01:52.180 | So many Christians trouble themselves about this.

00:01:56.780 | When I was six, I put faith in Jesus.

00:01:59.740 | I think, but I'm not going to stake my life on that.

00:02:03.500 | No way would I say, "If I wasn't a Christian then, I'm not now," or something like that.

00:02:10.140 | I think it was real, but I can't base my assurance or my hope on that.

00:02:18.180 | It's John Piper's present relation to Jesus that's all-important.

00:02:23.820 | Now I know that's not an adequate answer for Nick's question.

00:02:26.740 | He didn't ask me to tell him that at all.

00:02:30.980 | His question really does relate to real people whom we're trying to bring into a saving relationship

00:02:37.360 | with Jesus.

00:02:38.360 | What about them?

00:02:39.360 | What about how you talk to people who are approaching conversion or who just recently

00:02:46.660 | put their faith in Jesus?

00:02:48.140 | What about children who put their faith in Jesus?

00:02:50.960 | What about people who have been brought to faith in churches that never used the language

00:02:59.360 | of treasuring Christ or preferring Christ or delighting in Christ as being satisfied

00:03:07.140 | in Christ or embracing Christ as their supreme value?

00:03:11.180 | What if they were saved in a church?

00:03:12.820 | They've never even heard that language.

00:03:14.820 | Nobody's ever even talked like that to them.

00:03:18.120 | Can they be saved?

00:03:20.380 | So let me say four things that might be helpful in this regard.

00:03:25.560 | Number one, Nick is assuming that everybody who's listening to this maybe will know what

00:03:32.220 | he means when he says John Biber assumes that treasuring Jesus is part of saving faith.

00:03:38.660 | Well, whoa, I'll bet 90% of the people who are listening are saying, "What?

00:03:45.140 | I don't even know what that means."

00:03:46.940 | So here, let me clarify that.

00:03:51.380 | I do believe that saving faith includes receiving Jesus—that's John 1:12—to as many as received

00:04:03.180 | Him, believed in His name, so receiving Jesus.

00:04:07.220 | Saving faith includes receiving Jesus as the chief authority in one's life, Lord, the chief

00:04:16.860 | benefactor of one's life, Savior, and the chief value of one's life, treasure.

00:04:25.180 | Yes, I believe that's what saving faith does when it welcomes, embraces, receives, trusts

00:04:34.380 | Jesus.

00:04:35.380 | Now, I would say that because Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be

00:04:44.500 | also."

00:04:45.500 | So if He's not your treasure, your heart's not with Him.

00:04:50.260 | And Jesus illustrated conversion with this parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like a

00:04:55.820 | treasure hidden in a field, which a man found."

00:04:59.020 | He found and covered up, and in his joy, joy, he sells everything he has and buys that field.

00:05:05.940 | Now that is just a summary statement of when you discover the preciousness of King Jesus

00:05:13.500 | standing there ready to come into your life.

00:05:17.900 | Conversion is a joyful abandonment of all for Him.

00:05:24.300 | Jesus underlines it with two amazing statements, Matthew 10:37, "Whoever loves mother or father

00:05:30.980 | more than me is not worthy of me.

00:05:33.220 | Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

00:05:37.100 | And Luke 14:33, "Anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

00:05:48.420 | So yes, saving faith includes the embrace, the receiving of Jesus as our supreme treasure.

00:05:59.260 | Paul puts it like this in describing his own transfer from darkness in his Pharisee life

00:06:07.300 | to newness in his Christian life, Philippians 3, 8, "I count everything as loss because

00:06:15.100 | of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.

00:06:20.900 | For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things."

00:06:23.860 | It's like Jesus said, "Renounce all that you have or you can't be my disciple."

00:06:27.740 | I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I might gain Christ.

00:06:33.420 | And then he makes it starkly real, joltingly real with a contrast of a blessing and a curse.

00:06:41.620 | He says, 1 Corinthians 16, 22, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed."

00:06:49.260 | In Ephesians 6, 24, "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible."

00:06:59.820 | So that's my first observation.

00:07:01.460 | Yes, I think Nick got it right.

00:07:04.700 | That is what I believe.

00:07:06.580 | Second observation, what this means is that what happens in conversion is that the spiritual

00:07:13.900 | deadness and blindness of our hearts is taken away by God's Spirit and we are granted miraculously

00:07:24.820 | to see with the eyes of the heart.

00:07:27.980 | Ephesians 1, 18, see what?

00:07:30.380 | See the truth, the beauty, the reality, the excellence of Jesus through the portrayal

00:07:36.460 | of the gospel.

00:07:37.460 | And I get that from 2 Corinthians 4, 4, "The God of this world has blinded the minds of

00:07:42.020 | unbelievers to keep them from seeing," what?

00:07:45.820 | What can't unbelievers see because of the demonic blindness that grips them?

00:07:50.980 | What can't they see?

00:07:52.300 | The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

00:07:58.900 | It's the glory of Christ that we awaken to when the demonic blindness is removed, and

00:08:04.900 | that's described in verse 6.

00:08:07.180 | The God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has done that.

00:08:11.820 | He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the

00:08:18.060 | face of Christ.

00:08:19.780 | In other words, the glory and beauty and excellence and worth of Christ himself in his saving

00:08:27.420 | work is the greatest good of the gospel.

00:08:32.240 | He saves us to know him, enjoy him, treasure him as he really is, and then to reflect him

00:08:39.340 | and glorify him in our feelings and thoughts and actions.

00:08:43.260 | Just two more observations.

00:08:45.860 | One is that a person can really be saved, that is really come into this kind of relationship

00:08:52.360 | with Christ, even if he or she has never been taught all these texts.

00:09:00.340 | The Holy Spirit can create a new heart that treasures Christ in a person who has never

00:09:08.460 | thought of the word treasure as a label for Christ.

00:09:13.340 | The issue is not what words we use for our experience, but what real miracle has happened

00:09:22.340 | in our heart.

00:09:23.980 | I would say that the heart of a truly born-again person, when presented with the alternatives

00:09:32.100 | of Christ versus parents, children versus Christ, Christ versus health, Christ versus

00:09:39.060 | life, if those choices are ever presented, the born-again person will prefer Christ.

00:09:48.780 | Christ over parents, Christ over children, Christ over health, Christ over life.

00:09:54.100 | The heart, the new heart will embrace Christ above all things, whatever the language has

00:10:01.000 | been taught or used in a truly, miraculously eye-opened newborn heart.

00:10:09.260 | Last thing.

00:10:11.220 | The fight of faith that Paul describes in 1 Timothy 6, 12 is therefore a fight for joy

00:10:19.460 | in Christ, a fight for treasuring Christ above all things.

00:10:24.540 | This means that the state of a born-again heart is not without its warfare.

00:10:33.160 | Faith can be stronger or weaker, the Bible says.

00:10:37.020 | That means that our sense of the beauty and worth of Christ can be lively or dull.

00:10:43.600 | Our calling at those times of dullness is to look to Christ, look at His amazing sacrifice

00:10:51.800 | and His paths of triumph.

00:10:55.540 | The Lord who judges the hearts of men knows our true condition.

00:11:00.780 | He knows the treasure of our hearts, 1 Corinthians 4, 5.

00:11:05.440 | He knows those who are His.

00:11:07.880 | He's never unsure.

00:11:09.500 | Our assurance may rise and fall.

00:11:11.800 | He's never unsure.

00:11:14.740 | His faithfulness is our hope.

00:11:18.180 | Only Christ's faithfulness in sustaining us and holding on to us will help us make it

00:11:24.180 | to the end and not throw away our treasure.

00:11:28.900 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:31.140 | Excellent question.

00:11:32.140 | Nick, thanks for sending it in to us.

00:11:33.660 | If you have a question for Pastor John, email us, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:11:40.220 | Thank you for listening to the podcast.

00:11:41.860 | Over at our online home, explore about 1,300 past episodes now.

00:11:47.300 | Find a list for our most popular ones, read full transcripts.

00:11:49.940 | Do all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:11:55.060 | Well speaking of saving faith, one of the hardest conversations to have is with a professing

00:12:00.740 | believer who has shown little to no fruit in their lives over the years.

00:12:05.540 | Those are hard conversations to initiate and to do well, but they must be done.

00:12:11.980 | But what if we're talking about an elderly man or woman nearing death and we who are

00:12:16.660 | much younger want to initiate that conversation with them?

00:12:19.980 | How do we do it well?

00:12:21.700 | That's the question on Wednesday.

00:12:23.260 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.

00:12:24.780 | We'll see you then.

00:12:25.300 | [END]

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I Didn’t Treasure Christ When I First Believed — Was I Unsaved?

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