Conversion--how does it happen?

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:60-69).

Today’s Gospel reading starts with this statement: On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" These words are in reference to Jesus having said, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven" (John 6:53-58). Many of Jesus’ followers could not wrap their minds around the idea that in some supernatural way, God expected them to live off of Jesus’ body and blood. They also resented Jesus’ claim that apart from Him, they were dead and lifeless in God’s eyes. But the final straw came when Jesus said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." When Jesus said this, we are told from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

What is the big deal? Why did Jesus twice say that a person only comes to Him by the power of God, and why did this repeated assertion drive away many who were following Jesus? It has to do with human pride. We know that we are imperfect; we know that we make frequent mistakes. We know that Jesus came to earth to live the perfect life that we are incapable of living, to satisfy God’s expectations for us. We know that Jesus allowed Himself to be punished and killed to absorb God’s intended punishment for our wrongdoings. As a result of Jesus’ substitutionary life and death, we are freed from fearing God and are offered a relationship of trusting love with Him instead. We know that we had no hand in any of this—it was all Jesus’ work done for our benefit.

But our pride wants God to throw us a bone. Our pride would like to claim that, in some small way, we contributed towards our salvation. Our pride would like us to believe that while Jesus opened the door to heaven for us, it is up to us to walk through that door. Jesus may have done 95% of the work, but we would like to claim just a measly 5% of the credit for getting into God’s good graces.

One way we can feed our pride is by saying that we made the decision to believe in Jesus. Such a statement empowers us, makes us feel good, because then we are the captains of our own destiny—whether we end up in heaven or hell, at least the decision was up to us. We had the power to choose. What a blow to the ego, then, to hear Jesus tell us that it just doesn’t work that way.

We like to believe that we have something called "free will", but free will is largely an illusion. True, you can choose which clothes to put on in the morning, what to eat for breakfast, which road to take to get to work. But did you truly have free choice? Aren’t your dressing and eating choices limited by what you can buy in the store? Isn’t your route to work limited when roads are under construction? None of us has truly free will, and this is especially evident when we speak about our relationship with God.

The Bible is very clear: we are born sinful, we enter life at loggerheads with God’s attempts to lead us. In Psalm 51 David says, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me", and in Psalm 143 he prays, "Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you." Paul describes what a frightful situation this causes us to be in when he writes, "the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8). In Ephesians 2:3 he writes, "we were by nature objects of wrath". When in this condition, God’s teachings make no sense; in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 Paul says "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

How can a person come to faith in something that seems foolish to him? Only by a miracle of God. Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44). It is God’s power, acting through the Holy Scriptures, which stirs the beginnings of faith in our hearts; Romans 10:17 says, "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." God has said, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:10-11). God has promised that the preaching and teaching of His word will be backed up with His power, a power that can penetrate minds befogged by the foolishness of human teachings.

When God’s word penetrates our thick skulls, the effect is wonderful. In Ephesians chapter 2 we read, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." Notice the words "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God". Paul is crystal clear—our faith in Jesus is a gift from God. And this is a gift that keeps on giving, because it is by means of the gift of faith that we receive forgiveness of sins and access to the loving embrace of God!

Paul uses the imagery of us being dead--you were dead in your transgressions and sins. This is a useful analogy. A dead person cannot choose to become alive—it takes an act of God. Consider Lazarus; Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus arrived at his tomb. Yet when Jesus said, "Lazarus, come out!" Lazarus walked out into the sunlight alive. Did Lazarus restore himself to life? Certainly not! The command of Jesus to come out gave Lazarus the ability to do so. Similarly, when we hear Jesus say "Repent and believe the good news!", this is not Jesus instructing us to make a good choice, this is Jesus giving us the ability to respond to His call. Just as Jesus summoned Lazarus physically from death to life with His words, so does Jesus summon us spiritually from death to life with His words (John 11:17, 43 & Mark 1:15).

Do we decide to believe in Jesus? No—it is God’s work within us that makes us open to the truths of the Gospel. Paul writes, "my dear friends…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12-13). Can Paul say it any more plainly? "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose", which includes working out your salvation with fear and trembling. And John tells us, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" (1 John 1:12-13).

This teaching offended many of Jesus’ followers, who subsequently left Him. It wounded their pride to be told that everything, even coming to faith, was God’s doing, not their own. But I find this teaching to be reassuring. Like you, I am a sinner—and my sin keeps my faith from being as strong as it should be. We can all relate to the father who brought his son to Jesus for healing: Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered…"But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "`If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:21-24). That boy’s father had a faith weakened by sin, a faith all too much like our own. Now, if my salvation depended 95% on Jesus for opening the door to heaven for me, and 5% on my ability to step through, well frankly I’d be worried. I’m not convinced that my sinful tendencies would allow me to succeed in doing even 1% of the terribly important work of finding God. I find it immensely reassuring to know that my Lord has done it all—forgiven me, renewed me, and given me faith to trust in the reality of God’s love and help. When we let go of our pride and acknowledge that only Jesus can call we who are dead back to life, we have the assurance that salvation is ours without a doubt, because God is perfect and He has seen to every detail.

I leave you today with Paul’s words to Titus, recorded in chapter 3: "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."