In a recent conversation, I got a strong sense from a senior saint who felt that real spiritual heart change was difficult, and even impossible. Entrenched bad behaviors built up over years and years, or the destructive impact of words, fake news, wicked thinking, and sinful habits simply cannot be broken and changed! We must be pragmatic, and accept things for what they are, he said sadly to me.
Is a change of heart really impossible? Are we powerless before the patterns, routines and rut of sinful living and thinking? The truthful words of Scripture of what is possible and impossible later sprang to mind:
While it seems impossible, true faith empowers the believer to cast out demons and even achieve more spiritually: “…if you have faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’ (Matt 17:21)
While pragmatism and proportionality suggests that it is impossible for the rich person with all of the temptations of wealth to enter the kingdom of God: “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt 19:26)
Reasonable thinking sees that it is apparent that death remains death and barrenness is infertile, we read that: “… this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Lk 1:37-38)
Two character examples from Scripture are worthy of deeper study and reflection, especially in terms of how they us believe that God has the power to do what we see as impossible:
Can Sarah’s jaded heart rejoice again? (Gen 21:1–7)
“The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Gen 21:1-7)
Notice that the Scripture does not shy away from acknowledging the realities of the “challenge” on hand. Abraham received the promise of a “son in his old age”, he was “a hundred years old”, and Sarah herself says “who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?” The “yet” of her final comment is telling – despite, in spite of, regardless of, no thanks to the limits of her old age that this happened.
But let us go even further. The apostle commenting on Abraham noted that he “considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom 4:19) which indicates that Abraham was entirely aware and conscious of the physical and biological realities. Didn’t Abraham have faith? Of course he did in one sense, but in another sense, they are just statements of realism, pragmatism and Abraham is just like you and me. It would be nice to believe that aged Sarah could have a child – but it was natural, human doubt that drove Sarah to laugh with cynicism at God’s impossible word.
The biblical characters are not so different from you and me. She knew that her monthly cycles had ceased, and that her body was no longer able to receive a child. She knew that her husband’s body no longer functioned as it did either in strength and virility. These were realities of age, time, decline, and soon to come, death. Life in a fallen world looks like this as we are hardened by experience and yes, by disappointment and heartache.
Remember how Sarah had obediently followed her lord into unknown territories, uncertain but trusting. As her trust wavered she had tried to help God along with the putting forth of Hagar her maidservant as Abraham’s consort, not a person but a womb for Sarah’s hopes to be fulfilled. Sometimes faith can make us do twisted things. Remember Sarah’s own hurt as she was reviled and held in contempt by Hagar as Ishmael came, and the sad disentangling of that affair. Were faith’s expectations raised too high? Should she have managed her expectations more?
It is possible to become more formed by these experiences of pain and sorrow, of hopes deferred and hearts hardened than we are of faith and trust and confidence in the Lord. It’s possible for faith to lose its shine, to lose its strength and life, just as Sarah and Abraham’s flesh had.
And yet “the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised” (Gen 21:1). I love the poetic parallelism of the prose, which uses language to help us see that the Lord’s Word kept is the same as the Lord’s own visitation. When He visits, the promises are realised despite likelihood, probabilities, reason and doubt.
Are we like Sarah? Too lost in our own broken dreams and hopes to trust and hope in God? Praise the Lord who visits us in affliction and teaches us to laugh and smile and hope again. Isaac’s own name, “laughter”, is a reminder of the joy of faith.
People can change! New life can come forth from the death of a womb. Hope can be born again. Joy can spring forth from sorrow, there can be laughter after a life of tears.
Is Saul too lost to be saved? (1 Tim 1:12–15)
“I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.“ (1 Tim 1:12-15)
The apostle Paul, so named “small” from his status as “Saul” the namesake of the first royal king of Israel from the proud tribe of Benjamin, was no longer the man he used to be. He was “blasphemer” against God who spurned His work in the early church and through Jesus Christ, a “persecutor” of the brethren, eager to take them to captivity and to cause hurt, and a “insolent opponent” who breathed threats against the church, mocked their faith and taunted them at every turn, regardless of they were men or women. He was zealous for their destruction and he was often successful in his work.
Let us not forget how successful Saul truly was in a worldly sense. Before his birth he had the right pedigree, circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, and blameless in the eyes of the ritual law. Acts 22 gives us more of his pedigree, being educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers. Saul had all the answers to the questions man would like to ask: how do you accrue wealth, success, power, learning, expertise and influence in one lifetime? He was simultaneously a religious expert, a civic leader, a pillar in the community, the next big thing in line for greatness.
Have you met people who seem too talented, too zealous, too strong, too wise, too rich to need God? Have you been shaken by their intelligence, eloquence, achievements, self confidence, and how they seem untouchable, undaunted, defiant to the last? God seems them an unnecessary appendage, an afterthought, ancillary at best for the weak to indulge themselves in, or at worst, a distraction, an insult, a waste of time, or a joke to the unlimited potential and abilities of the modern man. Who would evangelize Saul of Tarsus? Who could? Who would match his wit and confidence and zeal and tell him that a life of pursuing Christ was superior to his life of purpose and power? After all in his own words, Saul was the foremost of sinners, the most lost of the most lost. One who could not be reached or humbled or taught.
But this same Saul was made “small”. His learning and expertise, he later learned was “ignorance” because he knew nothing of true life in his unbelief. From the hands of his enemy, he “received mercy because [he] had acted ignorantly in unbelief”. This is a stunning phrase – ignorance does not absolve the sinner of responsibility because unbelief is an act of the will.
Paul’s admission must be paired with what he writes in Rom 1 – sinners in wickedness suppress the truth about God even though what can be known about God is plain. They refuse to believe what they can clearly perceive and see, and thus act ignorantly with no reference or respect for God.
But see what it is that Paul says Jesus did: “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus”. This is the visitation of the Lord anew in our Lord Jesus. On that Damascus Road, Paul was born as Saul experienced the overflowing grace of Jesus as he tasted faith, as he was moved by the love of God in Christ Jesus. The God who would love us so freely and generously, overlooking all our faults and failings, bids us come so we have an unshakeable grounds for trust, thus acting in good will, undeniably charitable and kind. This is why Paul ends underlining the true statement that Christ came into the world to save sinners – His visitation was not for the healthy and the well, but for the sick.
Like Abraham and Sarah, Saul’s conversion glorified God because it showed that only God can bring forth life from the dead, only God can bring forth the righteousness of faith from the unbelieving, rebel sinner. This is glory, that people can change by the power and spirit of God. No one is beyond that power for change. Let us not be found limiting God’s power in believing that we cannot change – since that is having greater faith in one’s own flesh – or that others cannot change – which is to have less faith in the limitless power of God. Himself a hardened sinner and enemy of God, John Newton wrote: “Sovereign grace has power alone/To subdue a heart of stone;/And the moment grace is felt,/Then the hardest heart will melt.”
Thus let us pray: Lord, show your power once again as you make those who are royal in their own eyes small. Glorify yourself in the humbling of those who lift themselves up. Cause your grace to overflow in the lives of those who exalt themselves against you. Change the hearts that seem impossible to change. Do what only the Almighty can do.
Amen.
Written by Caleb Yap.