Well, at DesiringGod.org, we talk a lot about joy and treasuring as being an ingredient to saving faith, part of what saving faith is, the treasuring of Christ. And it raises questions like this one from a listener named Nick. "Hello Pastor John, thank you for answering so many questions on this podcast.

Here's mine. I recently discovered what you believe the Bible says about saving faith, namely that it includes treasuring Jesus above all things. This has made me wonder if I truly believed at the time of my apparent conversion. I saw growing signs of holiness in my life after my apparent conversion, and obeying God has been the number one pursuit of my life for years, but I don't recall being aware of my desire for God himself in my heart over the early years after what I think was my conversion.

If I did not begin treasuring Jesus when my apparent conversion happened, was I really unsaved?" Pastor John, what would you say to Nick? Well, the first thing that needs to be said, I think, is that Nick should not lose any sleep over the question whether he was truly saved, truly born again in that first moment of apparent faith.

The all-important question for all of us is the question of right now. Do we embrace Jesus now as the Lord and Savior and supreme treasure of our lives? When and how we came to have this glorious, miraculous preference for Jesus above all things, this submission to Jesus as Lord, is relatively unimportant.

So many Christians trouble themselves about this. When I was six, I put faith in Jesus. I think, but I'm not going to stake my life on that. No way would I say, "If I wasn't a Christian then, I'm not now," or something like that. I think it was real, but I can't base my assurance or my hope on that.

It's John Piper's present relation to Jesus that's all-important. Now I know that's not an adequate answer for Nick's question. He didn't ask me to tell him that at all. His question really does relate to real people whom we're trying to bring into a saving relationship with Jesus. What about them?

What about how you talk to people who are approaching conversion or who just recently put their faith in Jesus? What about children who put their faith in Jesus? What about people who have been brought to faith in churches that never used the language of treasuring Christ or preferring Christ or delighting in Christ as being satisfied in Christ or embracing Christ as their supreme value?

What if they were saved in a church? They've never even heard that language. Nobody's ever even talked like that to them. Can they be saved? So let me say four things that might be helpful in this regard. Number one, Nick is assuming that everybody who's listening to this maybe will know what he means when he says John Biber assumes that treasuring Jesus is part of saving faith.

Well, whoa, I'll bet 90% of the people who are listening are saying, "What? I don't even know what that means." So here, let me clarify that. I do believe that saving faith includes receiving Jesus—that's John 1:12—to as many as received Him, believed in His name, so receiving Jesus. Saving faith includes receiving Jesus as the chief authority in one's life, Lord, the chief benefactor of one's life, Savior, and the chief value of one's life, treasure.

Yes, I believe that's what saving faith does when it welcomes, embraces, receives, trusts Jesus. Now, I would say that because Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." So if He's not your treasure, your heart's not with Him. And Jesus illustrated conversion with this parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found." He found and covered up, and in his joy, joy, he sells everything he has and buys that field.

Now that is just a summary statement of when you discover the preciousness of King Jesus standing there ready to come into your life. Conversion is a joyful abandonment of all for Him. Jesus underlines it with two amazing statements, Matthew 10:37, "Whoever loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me.

Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And Luke 14:33, "Anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." So yes, saving faith includes the embrace, the receiving of Jesus as our supreme treasure. Paul puts it like this in describing his own transfer from darkness in his Pharisee life to newness in his Christian life, Philippians 3, 8, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.

For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things." It's like Jesus said, "Renounce all that you have or you can't be my disciple." I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I might gain Christ. And then he makes it starkly real, joltingly real with a contrast of a blessing and a curse.

He says, 1 Corinthians 16, 22, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed." In Ephesians 6, 24, "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible." So that's my first observation. Yes, I think Nick got it right. That is what I believe.

Second observation, what this means is that what happens in conversion is that the spiritual deadness and blindness of our hearts is taken away by God's Spirit and we are granted miraculously to see with the eyes of the heart. Ephesians 1, 18, see what? See the truth, the beauty, the reality, the excellence of Jesus through the portrayal of the gospel.

And I get that from 2 Corinthians 4, 4, "The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing," what? What can't unbelievers see because of the demonic blindness that grips them? What can't they see? The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

It's the glory of Christ that we awaken to when the demonic blindness is removed, and that's described in verse 6. The God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has done that. He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

In other words, the glory and beauty and excellence and worth of Christ himself in his saving work is the greatest good of the gospel. He saves us to know him, enjoy him, treasure him as he really is, and then to reflect him and glorify him in our feelings and thoughts and actions.

Just two more observations. One is that a person can really be saved, that is really come into this kind of relationship with Christ, even if he or she has never been taught all these texts. The Holy Spirit can create a new heart that treasures Christ in a person who has never thought of the word treasure as a label for Christ.

The issue is not what words we use for our experience, but what real miracle has happened in our heart. I would say that the heart of a truly born-again person, when presented with the alternatives of Christ versus parents, children versus Christ, Christ versus health, Christ versus life, if those choices are ever presented, the born-again person will prefer Christ.

Christ over parents, Christ over children, Christ over health, Christ over life. The heart, the new heart will embrace Christ above all things, whatever the language has been taught or used in a truly, miraculously eye-opened newborn heart. Last thing. The fight of faith that Paul describes in 1 Timothy 6, 12 is therefore a fight for joy in Christ, a fight for treasuring Christ above all things.

This means that the state of a born-again heart is not without its warfare. Faith can be stronger or weaker, the Bible says. That means that our sense of the beauty and worth of Christ can be lively or dull. Our calling at those times of dullness is to look to Christ, look at His amazing sacrifice and His paths of triumph.

The Lord who judges the hearts of men knows our true condition. He knows the treasure of our hearts, 1 Corinthians 4, 5. He knows those who are His. He's never unsure. Our assurance may rise and fall. He's never unsure. His faithfulness is our hope. Only Christ's faithfulness in sustaining us and holding on to us will help us make it to the end and not throw away our treasure.

Thank you, Pastor John. Excellent question. Nick, thanks for sending it in to us. If you have a question for Pastor John, email us, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Over at our online home, explore about 1,300 past episodes now. Find a list for our most popular ones, read full transcripts.

Do all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well speaking of saving faith, one of the hardest conversations to have is with a professing believer who has shown little to no fruit in their lives over the years. Those are hard conversations to initiate and to do well, but they must be done. But what if we're talking about an elderly man or woman nearing death and we who are much younger want to initiate that conversation with them?

How do we do it well? That's the question on Wednesday. I'm your host Tony Rehnke. We'll see you then. Desiring God Page 1 of 8 Desiring God Page 1 of 8 Desiring God Page 1 of 8 Desiring God Page 1 of 8 Desiring God Page 1 of 8 Desiring God Page 1 of 8