Introduction
Have I cried enough? Am I broken enough? Many who desire to come to Christ are held back by fear that their sorrow for sin isn’t deep enough. In this episode, our pastors address this tender but crucial question with gospel clarity. They help us turn our eyes away from the quality of our sorrow and fix them on the sufficiency of Christ. This is a freeing conversation for anyone weighed down by introspection or religious pressure.
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Transcript
Summary Keywords sorrow for sin, salvation, repentance, humility, faith, gospel, object of faith, assurance, revivalism, religious affections
Speakers Pastor Cam Porter, Pastor Jim Butler, Dr Samuel Renihan
Pastor Cam Porter (00:07)
Is my sorrow for sin deep enough to come to Christ? Some churches teach that a person must experience great sorrow or tears when they’re saved, often citing passages like Isaiah 61:1-3, Psalm 51:17, Psalm 34:18, and Matthew 5:4. But what if someone doesn’t feel that kind of emotional brokenness? Can they still truly come to Christ?
Dr. Samuel Renihan (00:37)
There’s a very good quotation that I want to share from John Norton, one of my favorite theologians. He was in the colonies in the 17th century and said: “What measure of preparatory work is necessary to conversion? As the greatest measure has no necessary connection with salvation, so the least measure puts the soul into a preparatory capacity to the receiving of Christ.”
There isn’t the same degree of humiliation in all who are converted. Some feel a greater measure of trouble, others a lesser. But all who are truly converted are truly humbled. So there must be humility of heart, an acknowledgment of one’s sin. But the measure of that has no necessary connection to salvation.
Salvation is not conditioned upon a degree of faith, but on faith. It’s not the power of the subject of faith that saves, but the power of the object of faith. Even mustard seed faith, so long as Jesus is its object, receives the same grace and salvation as the strongest faith.
Must a person acknowledge themselves to be a sinner? Yes. But if you try to insist on a certain experience or depth of sorrow, you will get trapped in a maze.
Pastor Jim Butler (02:45)
Very good. Yes, we must acknowledge that we’re sinners. But the measure of misery we feel isn’t what saves us. If we really understood our rebellion against God, we’d be overwhelmed. But Scripture doesn’t demand we feel a certain level of pain to come to Christ.
In the New Testament, when Jesus called Matthew or when the Philippian jailer asked, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer wasn’t, “First, go weep and mourn.” It was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
This kind of teaching that requires a certain degree of sorrow keeps people looking at themselves. It’s a wretched approach to the gospel. We don’t want to throw people back onto their own feelings or onto dramatic conversion stories.
I love Bunyan, but when we read Grace Abounding, I didn’t want my children to think they needed that same terrifying experience to be saved. If you’re a sinner, look to Jesus. Look and live.
Dr. Samuel Renihan (05:28)
Yes. It turns the gospel into a law. Instead of satisfying God, people feel the need to satisfy others’ expectations. Some pastor or church group ends up gatekeeping the church: “We’ll let you in once we think you’re sufficiently sorrowful.” That’s not how the gospel works.
Pastor Jim Butler (06:23)
And as believers, we often grow more aware of our sin. The misery cited in those Psalms is often the experience of someone already walking with God, grieving their ongoing sin. Romans 7, Galatians 5—these speak of the believer’s struggle.
So to tell a new convert that they need to feel all that before they can come to Jesus is to confuse categories. Instead, say: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (07:28)
The literature people often read—Puritan writings or Jonathan Edwards—came from contexts that had very specific reasons for emphasizing conversion experiences. But we shouldn’t treat those as normative for all times and places.
Pastor Cam Porter (09:16)
Yeah. Excellent. Thank you.
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