A Mustard Seed's Worth of Faith

I am not one to encourage people to hang their assurance of salvation on their ability to recollect "a time and a place where they met God". There are far too many people today living like the world having never shown any signs of a change in their life thinking they are going to heaven simply because they wrote a date in the front cover of their Bible or can remember walking an aisle at some point in their lives. That said, I do not want to demean the spiritual value of being able to recall the circumstances of one's own conversion experience. It is a good thing for us to look back from time to time in wonder about the mystery of our salvation and to marvel at how God used other people to plant the Gospel into our fertile hearts.

I cannot recall the exact date and time, or even the exact sermon, but I can remember the circumstances of my own conversion more vividly than any other event in my life. I hope to share more about those events in greater detail in a later post, but for purposes of this post, suffice it to say I had been going through a six-month period of suicidal depression and extreme isolation from other people. I had been beaten down emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually to the point where I was at my rock bottom. A whole life of church attendance and being "the good son" (in my mind) was rendered useless when at that point I was cut to the quick by the realization that I had no clue what it meant to have saving faith in God. Everything in my life at that point came to a complete stop. I was in complete darkness.

Enter: God, and His Gospel, through a portion of a sermon preached by John Piper. I still can't remember the exact sermon (I've listened to hundreds of Piper's sermons since then), but what he preached stands out in my mind more than any other truth from Scripture. In referring to Luke 17:6, Piper said saving faith is a gift from God and not something we conjure up within ourselves on our own. It is the result of the work God is already doing in our lives at the point in which we believe. That's the reason that a mustard seed's worth of saving faith is enough. The faith that God provides is sufficient to save. The faith that comes from within man's corrupt heart is not. For the first time in 32+ years (at that point) of living the "church life" I had to completely resign myself to the fact that I had no assurance because I was living under the false assumption that I just needed to 'try harder at having faith', 'pull myself up by the bootstraps' and 'live right'. At my rock bottom I looked up, and there was Christ. The hand which had been pushing me deeper and deeper into that pit was now reaching down to pull me out of it.

The following quote comes from a sermon Piper preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25. It expresses exactly what I heard preached that day in 2005. It also expresses the point of this post regarding the value of looking back on one's conversion experience with wonder and awe, and exult in the glory of God through his work of regeneration.

Regeneration is God's work, not man's.

O, do you know what it means to be a Christian? Do you stand amazed and speechless that you are a Christian? Do you look back with wonder and awe at the miracle of your new birth? Or do you take so much credit for it yourself that it doesn't occur to you to fall on your face and thank God that you are a Christian?

Think on it! If you have any truly spiritual desire for God, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any love for holiness, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any hatred for sin, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have a mustard seed of faith in Christ, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. To God be the glory for our conversion to Christ! Consider and be astounded, all you who by nature are children of wrath, that you believe in Christ and are new children of the Almighty.

Regeneration is a glorious work of God, not man.

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