Was God at Work in My Pre-Conversion Life?

00:00:04.200 | Well, God was at work in my life when he saved me.

00:00:08.640 | But was God at work in my life before I came to Christ?

00:00:12.640 | And if so, how should we talk about God's work in our lives before conversion?

00:00:19.040 | What does that season of my life before Christ tell the world about who God is?

00:00:27.280 | I've never really considered this, to be honest, and I suspect most of us haven't given that much thought either.

00:00:34.000 | Well, the Apostle Paul did, and he spoke with specificity about what his pre-conversion life

00:00:40.000 | displayed about the character of God.

00:00:42.880 | Here's the sharp question from a listener named Sean, who lives in Canada.

00:00:46.720 | "Hello, Pastor John. I have a question concerning the life that we as believers in Christ lived before we came to faith.

00:00:53.920 | Paul writes about his life before conversion as being one of the largest opponents of God."

00:00:58.720 | 1 Timothy 1:13.

00:01:00.720 | He later says his life as an unbeliever was used to display God's perfect patience.

00:01:08.240 | Going from a persecutor of Christians to a Christian.

00:01:11.040 | 1 Timothy 1:16.

00:01:12.800 | God was revealing himself in Paul's pre-conversion life, his patience.

00:01:18.400 | So looking at Paul's testimony, my question is this.

00:01:21.280 | Was God present and active in our lives when we were unbelievers?

00:01:24.960 | And should we too speak of what our pre-conversion life reveals about the character of God?

00:01:31.760 | Because quite honestly, that's something I really don't do.

00:01:35.520 | The answer to both of those questions is yes.

00:01:38.880 | God is always at work in this world, in everybody's life.

00:01:46.080 | Ephesians 1:11, "He works all things according to the counsel of his will."

00:01:52.640 | And when we come to Christ, we are given a perspective on that prior work, which is true and helpful.

00:02:06.080 | It is a cause for thankfulness in us, thankfulness.

00:02:11.200 | And it's a cause for a benefit to others.

00:02:15.440 | In other words, we experience it as worship, and we experience it, hopefully, as witness.

00:02:23.280 | Before we turn to Christ, there is, so to speak, a veil over our eyes,

00:02:27.760 | so that we can't interpret what's happening in our lives in its proper relationship to God before we're a Christian.

00:02:35.760 | In a profound sense, we are blind to what God is doing in our lives.

00:02:42.160 | So we can't tell any true stories about God's work in our lives

00:02:46.720 | before our eyes are open to see what he's really doing in our lives.

00:02:50.720 | But when we come to Christ, the veil is lifted, and we see our past life for what it really is,

00:02:59.840 | both in its darkness and in the bright light of God's work in it.

00:03:05.120 | So here's the text that makes that amazingly clear.

00:03:09.200 | This is John 3:19-21.

00:03:13.920 | "This is the judgment.

00:03:16.000 | The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light,

00:03:22.400 | because their works were evil.

00:03:24.320 | For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, does not come to the light,

00:03:29.680 | lest his works should be exposed.

00:03:32.720 | But whoever does what is true comes to the light,

00:03:37.360 | so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

00:03:44.480 | That's interesting. That's really significant.

00:03:48.320 | In other words, when a person turns to Christ and comes into the light,

00:03:54.240 | he is able to see not only the path that is in front of him

00:04:00.560 | and how he should walk now that he's a Christian,

00:04:03.360 | but he is also able to see for the first time what was really going on in his life

00:04:10.720 | before he was led to Christ and crossed over the line between unbelief and belief.

00:04:17.600 | The light of Christ shines in both directions.

00:04:20.960 | It shines forward to show us how to live, and it shines backward

00:04:27.280 | to show how God worked in our lives to bring us to himself.

00:04:31.440 | Now, one of the remarkable things about the passage in 1 Timothy 1, verses 12 to 16,

00:04:39.680 | is that Paul shows that there's a double reason for why we should think about

00:04:46.240 | God's work in our lives before we became Christians—a double reason.

00:04:50.800 | One is thankfulness.

00:04:54.960 | It should cause us, when we look back and watch the providences of God in our lives

00:04:59.600 | bringing us to him, it should cause us to worship and be amazed at the great mercy of God

00:05:06.560 | that he did not let us go our own self-destructive way.

00:05:12.560 | For example, Paul begins the paragraph in verse 12 of 1 Timothy 1,

00:05:18.640 | "I thank him"—that's the way he begins—"I thank him

00:05:24.480 | who has given me strength." So Paul worships.

00:05:27.760 | That's his first response when he looks back on what God did in his life.

00:05:32.000 | If any of us rightly understands our true condition

00:05:36.000 | before we were called into Christ, we will respond the same.

00:05:41.920 | Oh, yes, we will.

00:05:43.040 | Whether you were six years old or 66 or 86 when converted,

00:05:51.360 | the Bible makes clear, even if our memory doesn't, the Bible makes clear

00:05:57.520 | that we were hopelessly dead in our sin and were made alive by sovereign grace.

00:06:06.720 | But the main thing Paul is doing in 1 Timothy when he recalls his former life

00:06:13.360 | as a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent, the main thing he's doing

00:06:19.520 | is trying to help others who are despairing of their own salvation

00:06:27.200 | because their past life is so terrible they can't imagine God ever being patient

00:06:31.840 | and merciful with them.

00:06:33.120 | Those are the people he's really writing for when he talks about his past.

00:06:36.960 | And Paul's point in telling of God's work in his own past is to encourage them.

00:06:42.480 | No one is beyond hope.

00:06:45.520 | Here's the way he does it.

00:06:46.960 | "I was a blasphemer," this is verse 16 of 1 Timothy 1.

00:06:50.880 | "I was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent,

00:06:56.880 | but I received mercy for this reason,

00:07:01.600 | that in me as the foremost, Jesus might display his perfect patience

00:07:09.840 | as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life."

00:07:15.840 | In other words, he speaks of God's work in his pre-conversion life

00:07:21.200 | first in order to celebrate the greatness of God's mercy

00:07:25.440 | and second in order to help strugglers who have no hope.

00:07:30.560 | He wants them to have hope.

00:07:33.120 | He did the same thing in Galatians chapter 1.

00:07:38.000 | He knew that the churches of Galatia were struggling

00:07:43.360 | with whether they could really trust Paul as an authentic apostle.

00:07:48.400 | And one of the ways that he helped them trust him and his gospel as true

00:07:56.160 | was to tell the story of his past life in Judaism

00:08:01.440 | and how the only reasonable explanation of why he's risking his life now

00:08:06.480 | to advance the faith he formerly tried to destroy

00:08:11.200 | is Christ's amazing intervention in his life.

00:08:15.280 | Here's what he says,

00:08:16.000 | "You have heard of my former life in Judaism,

00:08:20.160 | how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it,

00:08:24.480 | and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age.

00:08:30.000 | So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers,

00:08:35.840 | but when he who had set me apart before I was born

00:08:39.920 | and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me

00:08:43.040 | in order that I might preach among the Gentiles,

00:08:46.880 | did that, I did not immediately consult with anyone,

00:08:51.600 | nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me,

00:08:55.040 | but I went away to Arabia and returned to Damascus."

00:08:58.400 | So before he was converted and before he became an apostle,

00:09:03.360 | God set him apart from his mother's womb.

00:09:08.480 | Second, God allowed Paul to become a radical anti-Christian zealot

00:09:13.040 | with zeal that surpassed everybody.

00:09:15.520 | Three, Christ appeared to him on the Damascus road and saved him.

00:09:20.480 | Four, Christ led him away to Arabia and turned him into a mighty apostle.

00:09:25.040 | All that recounting of his past was to help the Galatians know he was true,

00:09:34.080 | he was an apostle, and that they could trust his message, his gospel, and hope in the truth.

00:09:43.600 | So the answer to Sean's questions are yes and yes.

00:09:48.240 | One, yes.

00:09:50.720 | Was God present and active within our lives when we were unbelievers?

00:09:56.240 | Yes.

00:09:57.040 | Two, should we speak of what our pre-conversion life reveals about God?

00:10:03.200 | Yes.

00:10:04.560 | And for those two reasons, both for the glory of God in our own thankfulness and praises,

00:10:11.520 | and for the good of others who might be helped to have hope in Christ by our story.

00:10:20.400 | Wonderful.

00:10:22.160 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:23.040 | And Sean, thanks for the sharp question.

00:10:25.200 | And if you have a question that's good, I want it.

00:10:27.600 | Send it to us through our website at AskPastorJohn.com.

00:10:32.080 | On Friday, we return to this general text, to 1 Timothy 1.15,

00:10:35.920 | because Paul here calls himself the foremost sinner.

00:10:39.440 | And a number of you have emailed in over the years to ask if Paul really was

00:10:43.520 | the world's worst sinner, as he claims here, or is this hyperbole?

00:10:50.240 | That's on Friday in APJ 1905.

00:10:53.520 | But first up, speaking of putting our testimony into words to share with others,

00:10:57.760 | on Wednesday, the next time we're together, we're going to hear a fascinating story of

00:11:02.320 | Pastor John doing this very thing to share the gospel with his next door neighbor.

00:11:08.000 | This is a rare extended story from Pastor John, and I was encouraged by it,

00:11:13.040 | and I think you'll be encouraged by it as well.

00:11:15.520 | That's up next time.

00:11:16.880 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:17.920 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:11:20.800 | [END]

00:11:21.840 | 1

00:11:21.920 | Timothy 1.15, APJ 1905.

00:11:22.720 | 1.15, APJ 1905.

00:11:25.680 | 1.15, APJ 1905.

00:11:27.680 | Your support means a lot to us. In part, because it helps us out a lot.

Was God at Work in My Pre-Conversion Life?

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