How Do You Know You're a Christian?

A fourth point that Dickinson makes here is that regeneration is a new and supernatural principle worked by the

Spirit in all our faculties. But it is not a matter of him working this principle from the faculties in to the core, but it is that this principle now exists in the core, in the very soul of a man, and it is working itself out progressively through the various faculties of the person.

Yeah, so that's why the old writers would say this is a universal change. It's not complete yet.

Right, or immediate in all the aspects of the person. Right, right. So it's a progression. Sanctification is what we call the progression.

So regeneration is the beginning of this life, but like the beginning of a human life, that's just the start.

That's not the end. Then there is the growth and the maturation and the progress. A seed being planted is beautiful, but that's not the end.

The end is through a long process of growth. So regeneration is the beginning. Sanctification is the process.

Glorification is the end, when we are made completely like Christ. When we talk about this being a universal work, as you mentioned, the faculties of the soul, we are guaranteed that when

God begins to work in the soul, the mind will be affected. We will think differently. John says we will believe differently.

The heart is affected. We will desire and love differently. And the will is affected. We will choose differently.

And so in a sense, this answers the question of the Lordship. In a sense, this answers a lot of questions that people come up with.

One question would be, does Christ have to be Lord to be Savior? Well, if you approach that from a legalistic point of view, how much do you have to obey to be able to call yourself a

Christian? Then you're on the wrong track. It's just a swamp. But if you approach it from the right point of view, from regeneration, a man who is now alive in Christ, his mind, heart, and will have all been influenced or are all now being influenced by a new energy, a new principle.

And with this new nature, his mind will believe and the heart will desire and the will will choose

Christ. And so there will be Lordship. There will be a relationship with this

Lord. When we think of good works, we can say that good works must be in the Christian life because faith works.

But another way we can argue for that is because of a new nature. Ephesians chapter 2, it opens with, you were dead in trespasses and sins.

Then it talks about receiving the grace through faith. And then it says that you are created for good works.

The new life becomes active and the activity that we see is obedience.

This is one of the reasons also why fruit is an evidence of salvation, why we would look for fruit, whether we're talking about as pastors looking at others or even examining ourselves.

What's the basis of assurance or having a hope that this has happened to me?

It is that there's fruit because a new principle is going to produce a fruitfulness. One of the errors that we can make there, though, is thinking that the fruit that we're looking for is always mature fruit, that it is, you know, the fruit, it's extreme, ready to pick and eat, if you could say it that way, you know, and it's not necessarily that.

It's not always that, certainly. But do we see evidences of that kind of fruit in bloom or being produced in a very green form?

Yeah, and that's one of the warnings really that he gives in the sermon, that is, don't misapply this.

Regeneration is a wonderful work and it's essential. I remember reading George Whitefield in his biography.

He was talking to his older brother that was not a believer and at supper and the brother said to him something along the lines,

George, I'm not born again. And Whitefield said, that's wonderful news. And his brother said, well, why would you say that?

He said, because you must be born again and you need to know that, you know, as an Anglican, he would have perhaps thought that, well,

I was already baptized into Christ as a child and so I don't need that. I've already got it. So it's good to know what you need.

But don't misapply, as you just said, Chuck, the plant won't always be in that harvest picture.

You know, think of an apple tree. It won't always be loaded with apples. There are seasons in the life where it doesn't, you know, it's hard to find any evidence it's an apple tree, but it is an apple tree.

And in time it will demonstrate itself by obedience, by love, by faith.

And or if you think of planting the seed, the seed may only have just broken the surface with the little plant growing up and you look at and you think, but it's so small, but is it really there?

If it's really there, then there's hope. What God has begun will spread. And I want to cultivate that and not stop paralyzed with despair.

The other two points he gives here, and we'll just mention them is because I think we've kind of already mentioned it, is that it is regeneration that enables the soul and inclines it to faith.

Faith is an act of obedience like any other act. And so it is the product of God's gracious work in us.

I don't obey God in order to get him to love me, but because he has loved me and saved me,

I obey him. So I think we're right in saying that the first act of the newborn, of the new creation is faith and repentance, is conversion.

And we'll be talking about that in later chapters. I am alive to God. My eyes are open.

My heart is thawed. My will is freed from the old nature. And with a new energy within and a new guiding principle wrought in me by the spirit,

I turn to my savior in a repentant faith. And then it just and then the last point of the sermon is it just continues to flow in the life of heartfelt obedience, not perfect, but real.

I want to conclude with a final warning that he gives, that we do not deceive ourselves, that we do not claim to have a salvation that we actually do not have.

On page 143, Dickinson writes, let no man therefore delude his soul with airy dreams of a safe state until he has had some experience of this change in every particular instance.

What a pity it is that any of you should feed upon ashes, entertain a deluded hope, and at last be found with a lie in your right hands.