Paul's Description of a Sound Conversion

Driving home: If the fundamental activity in true conversion is turning unto God and away from idols, then before conversion, we are turned away from and towards our idols.

Describes Adam and Eve's pre-Fall state where God filled every 'nook and cranny' of their world and hearts, illustrating the original design of human devotion before sin introduced idolatry.

Devotion to God, the fear of God, love of God, delight in communion with God, these were the commodities, the gifts that constituted the native heir of the Garden of Eden before sin entered. God filled, as it were, every nook and cranny of Adam and Eve's world and He filled every nook and cranny of their hearts' affection and devotion. They had eyes to behold His glory in all that He had made, for it was all His handiwork. They had no purpose, pantheistic notions that all was God and God was all. No, they looked upon everything in their external world as created by God. Their eyes beheld His g...

14:01 - 15:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first main point is the fundamental activity of conversion: turning to God from idols. Martin explains that by nature, humanity is turned away from God and towards various…

Uses the prophet's language of forsaking the 'fountain of living waters' for 'broken cisterns that can hold no water' to illustrate the futility of idolatry in satisfying the human heart.

And so instead of holding to God's gifts and having the heart filled with unrivaled affection and devotion and submission to God, man who turns away from God invariably attaches his heart to his eyes. In the language of the prophet, they have forsaken me. The fountain of living waters, and they have hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. And sometimes that idolatry is of the gross form, the kind that we look upon and say how stupid and disgusting when we see people bending down to objects that they've made with their own hands and calling those things their gods or represen...

17:24 - 18:33 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first main point is the fundamental activity of conversion: turning to God from idols. Martin explains that by nature, humanity is turned away from God and towards various…

Cites Colossians 3:5 to show that covetousness, the grasping after things not rightfully one's own, is a subtle but real form of idolatry, attempting to fill the God-shaped hole.

In Colossians 3, 5, it calls covetousness idolatry. The grasping after things that are not mine, that I have no right to grasp after. And God says that, Covetousness is idolatry. It's an attempt to fill up that God-shaped hole with some new thing.

18:34 - 18:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: In other words, my friend, anything, no matter how legitimate it may be in itself, if it keeps you from wholehearted turning unto God, then you're an idol. And until you turn from it, you'll never, never be converted.

Defines an idol as 'any person or thing within or without you that rivals God's claims over your heart,' providing a broad understanding of what constitutes idolatry.

An idol is any person or thing within or without you that rivals God's claims over your heart.

31:43 - 31:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: In other words, my friend, anything, no matter how legitimate it may be in itself, if it keeps you from wholehearted turning unto God, then you're an idol. And until you turn from it, you'll never, never be converted.

Lists common idols like boyfriends, girlfriends, cars, houses, jobs, sensual pleasure, food, sex, and illicit drugs to make the concept of idolatry concrete and relatable.

For some people, an idol is a boyfriend, a girlfriend.

31:58 - 32:02 Read in full sermon

The point: With judgment day honesty, ask yourself, 'What is your God? It keeps you from him.'

Recounts the story of the rich young ruler whose money had become his god, illustrating that even legitimate things can become idols that prevent true conversion when they rival God's claims.

That was the problem of the rich young ruler. Money that is not evil in itself had become his god. He was yielding. He was yielding supreme allegiance to it.

32:44 - 32:54 Read in full sermon

The point: With judgment day honesty, ask yourself, 'What is your God? It keeps you from him.'

Martin uses his past experience playing football with intense energy to explain why he preaches with such passion about heaven, hell, and God's wrath, arguing that these eternal realities demand more energy than any earthly pursuit.

He loved him, but he let him go. I ask you, with judgment day honesty, knowing, there is a wrath that is coming. And if you say, Well, Pastor Martin, why did he get so worked up? My friends, I can't help it.

33:17 - 33:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave. Just that simple.

Explains the Greek word for 'serve' as 'serve as slaves,' detailing the characteristics of a slave (no name, no will, no possessions of his own) to illustrate the total submission in bond-service to God.

You turn to serve as slaves. God, the living and the true one. Now, you see, the contrast? He said when you turned unto God, what was the disposition of heart with which you turned to him?

35:36 - 35:55 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave. Just that simple.

States the blunt truth: 'Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave,' emphasizing the reciprocal nature of salvation and submission.

And Paul says in true conversion, the attendant upon any true turning to God is this disposition of bond-service to the living and to the true God. Now Romans chapter 6 is a whole chapter that emphasizes this again and again. Now let me put it in as blunt terms as I know how. Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave.

37:33 - 38:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What he is saying is, if anyone is so devoid of the sense of his own sin and gratitude for the mercy of God to sinners in the Lord Jesus, that he has not fled to this God through His Son and in the saving sight of Christ…

Uses the personal example of eagerly anticipating his wife's return from the hospital after surgery to illustrate the natural longing of a loving heart for a separated loved one, connecting it to the believer's eager anticipation of Christ's return.

When my wife was in the hospital for this recent surgery, and I would anticipate going to see her, what was the attitude of my heart? It was eagerness to look upon her face. Because that's just the way to love acts. Now do you see the connection?

42:22 - 42:44 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What he is saying is, if anyone is so devoid of the sense of his own sin and gratitude for the mercy of God to sinners in the Lord Jesus, that he has not fled to this God through His Son and in the saving sight of Christ…

Compares the eager anticipation of Christ's return to a bride eagerly awaiting her bridegroom on their wedding day after a forced separation, highlighting the passion and love involved.

And the day of her wedding is the day when she shall see Him after a forced separation of six months. And all that she does in her eager, busy preparations throbs with her eager anticipation. It's not the anticipation of escape. It's the anticipation of and so it is when a sinner gets converted.

43:25 - 43:56 Read in full sermon