How to Recognize True Repentance (Don Green) (Selected Scriptures)

I need to make sure that you understand that there this conference would not have happened without the without the superlative work of john roarke and his partnership with grace to you so thank you John I know more I know that more than anyone on the face of the planet and so I'm just very grateful for John and all of his cooperation and partnership in this as I was watching the last session unfold before my eyes watching Jeff Williams give his presentation and all of that which was of course wonderful the question that I couldn't escape was what am I supposed to do to follow that you know what am I supposed to do is show biz show pictures of my last business trip to Fresno nothing against my friends from Fresno but there's no way to there's no way to match that with the competitor that's in me so I'm going to do something completely different and direct your attention to something else that we need to talk about as we consider the Gospel according to Paul and I'd invite you to turn to the Gospel of Matthew to start with here this morning actually this afternoon the Gospel of Matthew as we've considered the gospel itself through pastor John's messages and what Phil Johnson preached from from Philippians 3 we could kind of summarize in one respect by saying that as ambassadors of Christ we offer eternal life to sinners if they will come to Christ for salvation and the question for this message that I hope to answer for you today and to consider in some measure of depth is how do we call sinners to respond to the gospel what is the response that we are looking to provoke from them what is it that we are praying that God would work out in their hearts as we proclaim the doctrines of grace to them as we preach salvation to them what is it that we as those who evangelize and those who preach what is it that we say to them how is it that they are to respond so that they would partake of the benefits of the work of Christ on the cross well as you're going to see as we go through scriptures today the answer to that question is this we call them to repentance we call them to repentance we call them to turn from sin in order to serve Christ in newness of life that was the call of Jesus's preaching as you're going to see and when Jesus commissioned Paul to preach the gospel that was the call in Paul's preaching as well I want to show both of those aspects to you repentance according to Jesus and repentance according to Paul so that you would see the perfect harmony in their gospel the perfect harmony of response so that you and I would be doubly committed to preach the gospel and clarity and to help sinners understand what is at stake when they hear the biblical gospel and so Matthew chapter 5 is where I want to begin and I just want to read the first four verses of the Beatitudes which actually begin in Matthew chapter 5 verse 3 to kind of set a context for us here this afternoon Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the gentle or the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied that's the launch point of today's message that passage is where I want start and what I want you to see is we kind of prepare to dive into that is that when you read the Gospels you find Jesus Christ preaching repentance that is the way that Matthew summarized Jesus is preaching ministry in Matthew chapter 4 verse 17 look over there with me for just a moment Matthew chapter 4 verse 17 after his baptism after his temptations Jesus embarked on his public ministry and Matthew records a summary statement of what the content of his message was here in verse 17 he says from that time on Jesus began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand it's a summary overview of what Jesus is preaching the intent and the call of Jesus is preaching was as he preached the gospel he was calling his hearers to repentance that was the focal point of his ministry now as you go over to Matthew chapter 5 Matthew chapter 6 in Matthew chapter 7 in the Sermon on the Mount what you see in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus's interpretation of what true repentance is look at the first verse with me again verse 3 I want you to see the the the con the context and the coint of contact between verse 3 in chapter 4 verse 17 Jesus had said in verse 17 a chapter for repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand he wanted sinners to be aware of the impending arrival of the kingdom of heaven and he was actually the king the kid that kingdom was right there because the king was there then in verse 3 says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven notice the connection kingdom of heaven in chapter 4 verse 17 the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit in verse 3 Jesus is starting to explain what he means by the call to hint and what we're going to see is we look at the repentance according to Jesus I want to show you four aspects of it if you're taking notes these would be four sub points of repentance according to Jesus and to just see what Jesus taught about repentance before he called Paul to preach the gospel to the Gentiles what do we see Jesus teaching us well first of all repentance according to Jesus means this first thing repentance includes the acknowledgment of your sin repentance includes the acknowledgment of your sin we could say it this way repentance includes an intellectual understanding a mental comprehension that you are a sinner with personal guilt before God you are personally guilty before God because of your personal violations of his law that is where repentance starts look at chapter five verse three with me now as we're going to take these four Beatitudes one by one Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven when he says that the poor in spirit are blessed he uses a word that means they are the privileged recipient of divine favor God has peculiarly blessed those who recognize that they are poor in spirit those who manifest this poverty of spirit that he describes are the privileged recipients of divine favor and Jesus says those who are like this theirs are the one they are the ones to whom the Kingdom of Heaven belongs and as you read this in the original language it is emphatic that he is saying that these people and these people alone are the ones who will enter the kingdom of heaven it belongs to them and it belongs to no one else if you're not poor in spirit you will not go to heaven that is the emphatic declaration that Jesus gives as he begins to interpret to true repentance for us now when he says this term poor I want you to understand that Jesus is talking about spiritual poverty here he's not talking about material poverty there is no intrinsic virtue in material poverty Jesus is talking about a spiritual dynamic which is in keeping with the summary theme of his preaching which is repent which is a spiritual command and what he is saying here is that when you evaluate yourself in the light of God's law in the light of God's character when you evaluate your life in light of the person of Jesus Christ himself you should understand you should quickly acknowledge that you do not deserve to be in his presence on your own merits there is nothing in you or in me that would commend ourselves to God as just as a being a creature we're not worthy of the uncreated creator and being sinners were not worthy of the presence of the holy God what he is expressing here is the idea of spiritual bankruptcy the word poor is the same word that was used in a material sense to describe Lazarus when he was begging for crimes at the rich man's table he was he had no resources of his own here Jesus is saying spiritually what you and I have to realize what we have to embrace with our minds is that we have no spiritual offering to make to God that would commend us to him all of your efforts all of your religion all of your rituals do not fit you to be before a holy God you are spiritually bankrupt and there is nothing that you can do to improve your condition that is what Jesus is saying here what he says is there's two things here that's actually going on one is he's making a declaration of the reality of it whether you admit it or not that's the reality of it we're all spiritually bankrupt we could pool our collective two thousand spiritual resources here and we would have nothing to offer to God collectively let alone individually that's the reality of it but what he's driving at here is for you to embrace that to acknowledge that from the bottom of your heart with all of your heart soul strength and mind you acknowledge that I have nothing to offer myself to God there is nothing about me to commend myself to God that's what he's saying and so this idea of repentance completely excludes in a personal pride or any personal self-reliance as we approach God we have nothing to commend ourselves to him we are beggars at the table of mercy with no rights to demand no claims to call in no chips to cash in if you want to put it in a rather crass way we have nothing repentance starts with knowing your own spiritual poverty but as we go on and see what Jesus says repentance is far more than that act of intellectual comprehension there is more to it than just mentally agreeing with that factual statement it starts there but it is so much more than that what we're about to unfold am about to unpack is something that I think really starts to expose the poverty of the American Christian scene the poverty of contemporary Evangelic ilysm because it's easy in one sense to get people to say oh yeah I'm a sinner but the second aspect of true repentance is where you start to see that we fall short where we don't really take this seriously when I say we I'm talking about the professing Christian Church in general as well as us individually because secondly repentance not only includes the acknowledgment of your sin repentence second sub-point here repentance includes sorrow over your sin it includes sorrow over your sin and when I say sorrow what I mean is that emotionally you grieve over your sin when you're truly repentant you grieve over it look at verse 4 where Jesus said blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted this word for mourning describes deep inner agony agony Jesus is describing a spiritual mourning here not an earthly mourning it's easy enough to see that there are a lot of people that suffer earthly loss and mourn that that don't receive comfort from Christ unbelievers who are mourning their losses don't receive comfort from Christ what Jesus is talking about here is spiritual mourning over sin he had just talked about poverty of spirit it's in the context of repentance in verse 6 he talks about hunger and thirsting for righteousness the whole the whole morning that he's talking about is our lack of personal righteousness our violations of his righteousness that's what we're mourning over and when you understand this aspect of repentance what you need to see is that truly repentant people are not flippant about their sin truly repentant people don't find entertainment and joy out of watching other people's sin in movies and that kind of stuff the hatred of sin the sorrow over sin precludes that kind of interaction with it and and we don't joke about our sin if we're repentant because we're so grieved about it we take it seriously it breaks our hearts it Pierce's us to the core when we're truly repentant Phil and his message alluded to the tax collector in Luke 18 verse 13 Luke 18 verse 13 you don't need to turn there the tax collector standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast saying God be merciful to me the sinner he was beating his breast his his agony his mourning over sin was so great that he had to release it physically this was no superficial response this was no quick nod of the head to the question do you think you're a sinner and then move on to whatever the next topic of discussion was no the kind of mourning the kind of sorrow that repentance expresses is a sorrow that stops you in your tracks a sorrow that you can't get over let me ask you a question how much do you hate your sin repentance and especially in our American culture I don't know about the other eighteen countries that are represented here but in our American culture this needs to be said repentance is not measured the seriousness or the quality of your repentance is not measured by your opposition to the sins of society like abortion or homosexuality that is not a mark of true repentance at all it's good to be opposed to those things those things are contrary to righteousness but it has nothing to do with your personal repentance your attitude towards that because the mark of your personal repentance is the way that you grieve over your sin that is the mark of repentance and I fear that the strong opposition that you see in the Christian Church sometimes to the opposition of society sense comes at the expense of real personal concern about our own sins and that needs to be said Jesus isn't calling you to mourn over someone else's sin he's calling you to mourn over your sin if you're a repentant your sorrow in and your grief and your agony is over the fact that you yourself fall short of the glory of God that's what repentance does now thirdly going through this rather quickly I know jesus said that repentance includes an acknowledgment of your sin that understanding of your sin moves your heart to grieve over your sad spiritual condition it makes you broken over your prior rebellion to God but Jesus went even further than that when you really study the doctrine of repentance you understand how far down it drills deep into your soul Jesus went beyond this intellectual and emotional reaction against sin and taught us that repentance goes to your very will it goes to your very volition this is the third set point here repentance turns away from your sin repentance turns away from your sin it's not enough to know that you're a sinner it's not enough to grieve over your sin the point of repentance is that you would grieve over it to the point that you turn away from it that you decisively consciously break from it and turn away from it and say that is unacceptable in my life so on a volitional level you turn from sin in order to serve God look at verses five and six of Matthew chapter five here remember Jesus is expanding on he's expounding on what he meant when he said repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand verse 5 he says blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth verse 6 blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied repentance changes your entire orientation repentance changes a man from a proud boastful arrogant self-willed man into a humble meek man who is happy to defer to others spiritual mourning produces an unquenchable desire for holiness instead of pursuing desiring after sin you see here that the whole will has been reoriented in repentance because Jesus pronounces blessing on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness they hunger and thirst for that which they don't have and the words that he uses there of the of the simple physical bodily needs of hunger and thirst he takes an applied takes them from the physical realm and applies them to the spiritual realm to show us that the repentant person is someone who wants righteousness to mark his life he realizes that he lacks it he understands that he doesn't have it and so he looks outside himself for righteousness and he wants to manifest practical righteousness in his own life Jesus called for that kind of change with the rich young ruler in Luke chapter 18 Luke 18 verse 22 he said one thing that you still lack speaking to that person that was in front of him he said here's what you lack sell all that you possess distribute it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come follow me he was calling for a total reorientation of that man's life from the materialistic pursuit of his riches Jesus says you have to abandon that and come after me do you want righteousness that much and what you should see from that example is that the call to repent comes from Christ as an imperative it's a command that goes out to all men everywhere repent he called the rich young man to abandon his earthly priorities and follow Christ the everything that he treasured all all that he loved all of his priorities Jesus says you've got to cast all of that aside you've got to leave it behind and come follow me state it differently true repentance affects the whole inner man we turn from sin decisively consciously totally without qualification without reservation with no mental reservations about what we might hang on to just that one particular sin and I'll repent of the other 99% no no repentance is a total turning of the inner man from sin to walk with God in the ways of his word and beloved I have to tell you that a man or a woman who refuses their will to Christ is not repentant at all no matter how sorrowful they may be about the consequences of their sin until there is a turning of your will you are not repentant which is a the way of saying until your will has been given to Christ you are not a Christian it's that stark it's that clear let me put it to you this way true repentance true repentance wants more than deliverance from Hell true repentance wants more than deliverance from eternal damnation you don't have to be a Christian to not want to go to hell there's nothing you know uniquely spiritual or uniquely biblical about that desire who wants to go to hell given the alternative you know no true repentance true repentance wants to be delivered from sin true repentance wants to be delivered from the pollution and power of sin in addition to being delivered from the penalty of sin true repentance hates sin and desires righteousness there's a whole reorientation of the inner man in true repentance true repentance wants to have Christ and His righteousness and is willing to forsake and abandon it all in order to gain him someone may object at this point how do I know that you're not preaching salvation by works when you say this well let me clarify that and just clarify the nature of repentance hopefully in the process when we talk about repentance we are not talking about a pre salvation effort to get your life in order you can't do that you can't fix it it's broken Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall and you can't put it back together again no repentance is an internal response to the work of God it earns no merit to our account the whole premise of Jesus is teaching in the Beatitudes is that you're poor in spirit that you're spiritually bankrupt you acknowledge you have nothing to commend yourself to God true repentance couldn't possibly be a matter of someone coming and saying I bring my repentance to you God therefore you owe me salvation that is that is appalling to the repentant mind in fact the Bible says that repentance is a gift from God Acts chapter 11 verse 18 acts 1118 if you're jotting down the scripture references says that God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life God gave them that he granted it to them 2nd Timothy 2 verse 25 Paul says that we are to with gentleness correct those or who are in opposition if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth they need a work of God in their heart in order to repent God gets the glory that way and when God is calling a sinner into his kingdom when He is calling your heart to come to Christ and you have that internal compulsion born out of the work of the Holy Spirit God has awakened your heart to Christ the sinner gladly repents in order to receive him and if it is a gift from God then it is not a work in which man can boast repentance is the acknowledgment of our unworthiness not an assertion of it but there's more as you continue to read the Gospel of Matthew there's an there's an intellectual dimension to repentance you acknowledge your sin there's an emotional dimension to repentance it grieves you grieves you because of your sin not someone else's there's a volitional dimension to sin you turn from it in order to turn to Christ to serve Him to receive him but there's this fourth aspect of repentance according to Jesus which is just astonishing and we'll spend a little bit more time here I couldn't come up with a great way to state this point that was pithy so let me just state it this way repentance transfers your heart allegiance to Christ repentance transfers your heart allegiance to Christ and you could just view this as an aspect of the volitional thing the volitional aspect of repentance but I think it bears a particular emphasis in light of what you read as you go through the Gospels Jesus's call to repentance demands it requires the sinner to transfer his ultimate heart allegiance his final heart allegiance to Christ Jesus said in Matthew 22 what is the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all of your heart soul strength in mind there is a total turning over of your heart allegiance to the person of Jesus Christ and without that true repentance has not occurred you must turn not only turn from sin in a negative sense in a positive sense true repentance turns from sin and it follows Christ irreversibly saying I am going to follow Christ henceforth from this moment on without qualification without reservation with all of my heart Lord Jesus I give you my allegiance I surrender to you as my Lord with no mental reservations my life now belongs to you you want a blank check here's a blank check I'll sign it you fill in the amount stated differently you cannot repent and keep the any of the desires of your unregenerate heart they all have to be laid down at the feet of Christ turn over to Matthew chapter 10 where you can see Jesus saying this so clearly Matthew chapter 10 and verse 37 I'm happy to hear those Bible pages turning notice the call to preeminent love that Christ requires he says he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me he who has found his life will lose it and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it in the outer center of your heart it should be it must be if you're a Christian it must be settled that there is nothing on earth that approaches your love for Christ there is nothing that competes with the final affections of your heart if it's a matter of choosing between Christ and life you gladly bear the the wounds of a martyr if the matter of a family relationship competing with your love for Christ while we don't seek to turn people away from us in our look human love if they say if they come and say it's me your cry you get up and say here let me get the door for you as my final act of kindness to you because I will not turn from Christ I remember and I thank God for the for the moment when that was clear in my own life early on very early on in my conversion my father who was a dominating kind of man who ruled with a bit of an iron fist I say that in love and in kind remembrance of his memory he did not like the fact that I had become a Christian I became a Christian in my early 20s and he sat me down one day he was used to getting his way in everything and he sat me down one day and he said he said listen he said look I'm really I'm glad that you're real religious he had seen the testimony of my life over a few weeks or months of my conversion he said look I'm glad you're real religious but you're taking this too far and I want it to stop that's like getting an order from a sergeant with the way you know he did things and I just thank God that the Holy Spirit gave me the presence of mind at that time to say dad no no no Jesus Christ has changed my life and I am NOT going back it was not a premeditated response but it was the mark it was a sign of the true nature of my conversion if he was going to take tell me that I had to choose between him and Christ there was no contest that's what Jesus says you can't love father or mother more than me or you're not worthy of me Jesus doesn't take second place you give him first place or you walk away from him but don't insult the holy son of God with a sense that you'll add him to your other desires and he'll fit in the mix on place Christ gets the preeminent affection or you don't get Christ this is universal this is what Jesus says to all men Jesus confronts every human heart leave your life behind to follow me or you will die in your sins turn over to the Gospel of Luke I want to show you a couple of passages there Luke chapter 13 in verse 3 I like for people to see the scriptures with their own eyes and not just quote them all the time without having you turn there I want you to see this in your own Bible I want you to see that I'm not making this up Luke 13 verse 3 Jesus says I tell you no but unless you repent you will all likewise perish without exception if you don't repent you will perish you will die in your sin well in the context of the totality of what Jesus has taught on repentance and the call to himself you can see how stark the call of the gospel is a true presentation of the gospel leaves people with no alternatives and they should walk away from the gospel understanding that look it's either Christ or I died in perdition there's no there's no alternative there's no third door here and the call that Jesus makes to repentance is that you leave your whole life behind all by which he means your whole affections everything that you loved before is now subordinated to Christ turn over a page or two to Luke 14 verse 26 actually we'll look at verse 25 just briefly Luke 14 verse 25 now large crowds we're going along with him and he turned and said to them large crowds a mixture of people indiscriminately he says to them if anyone if anyone this is a universal statement if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple he says in comparison to your love and allegiance for me everything else has to be subordinated to subordinated to such a degree that it seems like hatred by comparison verse 27 who does not whoever does not whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple Jesus was calling for an unconditional transfer of your heart allegiance from whatever it was that you loved to him and he put all of the things that we tend to love the most the possessions with the rich young ruler father mother houses farms our own wife our own priorities he says you've got to hate all of that by comparison to me or you can't be my disciple you turn from self you turn from sin to Christ you love him more than life itself you place no limits on your future obedience that is repentance so let me say this we get it all wrong we get it all seriously wrong we seriously distort the gospel beyond recognition we disfigure it when we tell people as if this were the final word on the gospel that they need to accept Christ as their personal Savior if that's all that you say to someone you have not explained the gospel to them at all there's nothing in that that it helps the sinner understand what the price of the gospel is the sinner needs to understand that his great concern is for Christ to accept him and you so you come as a beggar not as the one who's in control and deciding Christ all except you it makes it makes me nauseous just to describe that let alone to think it know we come before the sovereign Lord of the universe we come as beggars we come as those asking for mercy not for one as though we're extending our approval to him that's repulsive now someone else may object at this point with a legitimate question a clarifying question say done you've been talking all along about repentance I thought that what about Acts thirteen thirty-one you know they told the Philippian jailer believed in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved where's repentance in that Ephesians 2:8 9 you're saved by grace through faith that not of yourselves yes of course but in those simplified and I've seen you know and you have to seen people who write and they just want to restrict or the totality of the gospel to one or two verses as if there weren't 259 other chapters in the Bible or in the New Testament and they and they want to subordinate the totality of Revelation to one or two favorite verses that fit their theology and discard all of the uncomfortable things that would contradict their weak theology what is too often obscured and the reason that we need to elevate repentance in our thinking and elevate repentance in our Proclamation is that the biblical picture of saving faith is that saving faith is a repentant faith the jailer when you read acts 16 the jailer was at the end of himself he was ready to commit hari-kari is that Japanese suicide or am I just thinking of the Cubs broadcaster I don't know he was willing to commit suicide he was at the end of himself and and that passage goes on and says that they explained the Word of God to him you can't narrow it down to two words in one verse and say this is the totality of the gospel that's an insult to serious Bible interpretation what the sinner needs to understand is that there are no promises of salvation to unrepentant people Paul said in Romans 2 that you're stubborn and unrepentant heart is storing up wrath for yourself and so unless someone manifests these characteristics of repentance as Jesus described them this intellectual emotional volitional response to sin this transfer of heart allegiance to Christ they have no grain for assurance of salvation if there are consciously aware of of aspects of that that they just totally reject this is true repentance by the words of Jesus so what is the relationship then between repentance and faith repentance you could say turns from sin in the ways that we've been describing here faith which is the other side of the coin heads and tails of one single coin faith receives Christ and rests upon him alone for salvation repentance and faith are interdependent you cannot have true repentance without true faith or vice-versa you turn from sin because you hate it for its own intrinsic evil you turn to Christ for salvation because only he can deliver you from sin if you're turning from something you've got to turn to something that's the idea saving faith is a repentant faith without repentance there is no salvation repentance stated differently turns from sin and by faith and trust in the promises of the gospel asks God for mercy based on the promise of eternal life in the gospel God I hear your word I hear the offer of salvation in the gospel I trust you to be faithful to your word I come to you and I submit my heart to you please save me from this horror that is within me that your word calls sin that's repentance how thorough was Jesus's commitment to repentance look at Luke 24 Luke 24 how elevated was the theme of true repentance in the mind of Christ well in Luke chapter 24 verse 47 Luke's version of the Great Commission Luke chapter 24 verse 47 he says Jesus said to the Apostles before he ascended to heaven he said repentance for forgiveness of sins shall be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem you are witnesses of these things that was after in verse 45 he opened their minds to understand the scriptures he sent them out to preach repentance in his final words before his almost final words before he ascended into heaven that was his commission that was his charge to the Apostles and so what I want you to see from that is this Matthew chapter four at the beginning of his public ministry Jesus says repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand at the end of his public ministry after his death and resurrection before he goes to heaven he sends the Apostles out and says you go preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins he ended up where he started it's like bookends to his ministry and everything else undergirds the call to sinners to repent in the proclamation of the gospel Jesus called men to repent and follow him and that is the message that he entrusted to the apostles and that is a message that we still have today we're under obligation to tell sinners that they must repent and turn to Christ and not offer them a watered-down gospel that won't save them now someone may object at this point you'll see this from those who deny that repentance a part of the Gospel message if repentance is so important they say why doesn't the Gospel of John mention it he says in John chapter 20 verse 31 that these things have been written in order that you may believe and have eternal life if it's so important why didn't he mention repentance and they closed their Bible and slapped their hands and they think it's all over the arguments done they that's their silver bullet in the discussion it's more like instead of a silver bullet it's more like sawdust there's no power in that argument at all if you look at it at all the Gospel of John doesn't use the word repentance but throughout the gospel he expresses the concept of repentance he says the true believers must obey the son they must honor God they must love God they must keep Jesus's Commandments sinners do none of that and so there's obviously a call to conversion that is implicit in what John is saying and John wrote his gospel decades after Matthew Mark and Luke had written there's the principle of repentance was already stated and established and so he's just bringing out the other side of conversion with his gospel they form a perfect harmony that shows the glory of salvation as Jesus presented it he better be careful with what you do with that argument about the Gospel of John because in the four Gospels the four gospel writers do not quote Jesus as using the word grace did Jesus because he didn't use the word grace deny salvation by grace was he teaching salvation by works because he didn't use the word grace it's foolishness it's foolishness to pitch scripture against scripture that way to elevate one chapter one verse one book against all the others let's read the whole Bible and see what the whole Bible says now can I call a timeout of course I can you may not grant it but I'm gonna call a timeout here I want to put my pastor's hat on for just a moment I know and understand that most of you are here because you love God's Word you're here because you have repented and believed in Christ that's why you love the Ministry of grace to you that's what brought you here is a love for God's Word which is the mark of a regenerate heart someone who's truly come to salvation but do a little bit of math with me if 95% of you in this room right now are all true Christians that means that over a hundred of you are not and if you died tonight Jesus would turn you away maybe you've believed that false gospel you've relied on that superficial gospel and there hasn't been any real meaningful life transformation to you look I wouldn't be a faithful pastor if I didn't call something to your attention turn back to the Gospel of Matthew with me to a familiar passage Matthew chapter 7 Matthew 7 verse 21 and I'm saying this to help you beloved I'm saying this as an ambassador of Christ pleading for the health of your soul pleading for you to be reconciled to God that 5% of you percentage may be higher I don't know God knows but I'm not going to take anything for granted at this time Jesus said that there would be a large portion of humanity surprised at the day of judgment that they're not going to heaven in fact if you'll go up to chapter 7 verse 13 he says enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many who enter through it if he was trying to describe the modern gospel that is presented to so many people he couldn't he couldn't have described it more accurately when people try to make the gospel so easy what are they doing except saying hey the road is broad everybody come in jesus said the way is narrow and when you understand the doctrine of repentance Jesus is teaching on repentance you understand why it's narrow because you have to leave everything behind in order to walk through a narrow tight turnstile you can't go through carry in your luggage you have to leave it all behind if you want to walk through that turnstile into eternal life that turnstile is repentance and Jesus says he says that there's going to be so many people who don't pay attention to my word there verse 21 not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter you know the passage look at verse 22 many will say to me on that day Lord Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles hey we're calling you Lord and look at our look at all this stuff we've done how could you possibly turn us away well the answer is is that they never repented look at what he says in verse 23 then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness and beloved those men had never repented and were so self deceived that they're shocked on the day of judgment to find that Christ is not receiving them into his kingdom shocked and the fact that they were marked by a practice of lawlessness shows that they had never changed their orientation from sin to Christ Christ says I never knew you he wouldn't say that to someone who truly repented like we've talked about it here this today and so beloved I have to ask you in light of the words of Christ have you repented like this do you know something of what it is like to recognize the vileness of your old man and to turn from it and to hate it and want to embrace Christ without condition with all of your heart that's true repentance and without it there is no salvation and so I just have to invite you I have to call you to turn to Christ and be saved turn to him you see you have to come out of your former life you have to come out of your false religion you have to come out of your pride you have to come out of the sin that you love you have to leave it all behind and come alone to Christ that's the call to repentance and so if you're one of those 5% just picking a number I'm just making it up God orchestrated this whole you should view it this way God orchestrated this entire conference for you to hear the gospel with clarity and to repent and to be saved and if you come to judgment apart from Christ how much will you be without excuse but Oh beloved for those of you that have repented rejoice in the gospel rejoice in the fact that God has worked in your life in this way if you're a repentant like that it's a mark that God has done a sovereign work in your heart and he has shown mercy on you by name individually Paul said Christ died for me and gave himself up for me first person singular he died for me well we spent so much time looking at the repentance according to Jesus that I'm gonna have to pinch the time on repentance according to Paul which is the whole point of this conference [Music] do me a favor don't tell Pastor John about this okay we'll just keep this to ourselves I want you to see real quickly that Paul himself preached this same kind of repentance turn to the book of Acts and keep your fingers limbered up because we've got to move here Acts chapter 14 sometimes people wonder did Jesus and Paul preached the same gospel what a foolish question but in in this aspect of it in that the consistency of their call and approach to repentance you're going to see that of course they did Acts chapter 14 verse 15 we're going to just read these scriptures Paul ran out to these men and said men why are you doing these things they wanted to offer sacrifices to the speaker's men why are you doing these things we are men who have the same nature as you and we preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a Living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all the descendant I'm preaching the gospel and I'm telling you to turn from your idolatry to the true God Acts chapter 17 verse 30 Paul says that having overlooked the times of ignorance God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he's fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness Acts chapter 20 verses 20 and 21 acts 20 verses 20 and 21 Paul says I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ repentance repentance repentance now you see him discussing repentance in his epistles it's not as prominent a theme and his epistles because he's writing to Christians he's writing to churches so he's writing to people who had already embraced repentance and were had repented and now we're seeking to live the Christian life and so it wasn't the same emphasis that was needed when he was doing evangelistic work there was a different kind of work that was needed now in his writings but still you see those same four elements of Christ's teaching in the writings of the Apostle Paul now just stay with me here we'll go through him real quickly first of all Paul taught the acknowledgment of sin Paul taught that all men should acknowledge and recognize their sin Romans chapter 3 and in verse 9 I'll just read it to you he said we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written there is none righteous not even one there is none who understands there is none who seeks for God all have turned aside together they've become useless there is none who does good there is not even one verse 23 for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God what is that except a teaching of the universal nature of sin and the fact that have to acknowledge that Paul's writings informed our conscience informs our understanding that they're that we are all sinners by nature and by deed all under sin spiritually bankrupt that's the same thing Jesus taught isn't it there is no space between the two secondly Paul taught sorrow over sin he taught this emotional reaction against sin just jot down this reference I won't have you turn there again just to save time second Corinthians chapter 7 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 the Apostle Paul looking back on the conversion of the Corinthians says I now rejoice not that you were made sorrowful mere remorse is not enough but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God verse 10 the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret same thing Jesus said true repentance sorrow leads to a volitional turning away from sin but there's a sorrow over it that is the spiritual mourning that Jesus taught it it disturbs the repentant person that he sinned and violated God's glory that unclean thoughts have permeated his thoughts unclean words have come out of his lips unclean deeds have been done by his hands grieves him he doesn't call a truce with it it grieves him now thirdly Paul taught the turning from sin Paul taught the turning from sin he taught the knowledge of sin the sorrow over sin and he taught the turning over sin in Acts chapter 26 he makes this so very explicit Acts chapter 26 in verse 15 the Lord said to him I'm Jesus whom you are persecuting get up and stand you're on your feet I'm appointing you a minister to the things which you have seen and also the things in which I will appear to you verse 18 Jesus is giving him the content to the call to Jews and to Gentiles I'm rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles I'm sending you verse 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the Dominion of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me verse 20 he says I went out and preached that they should repent and turn to God performing deeds appropriate to repentance that volitional call turned from sin pursue Christ and His righteousness now fourthly Paul taught this heart allegiance to Christ he taught this heart allegiance to Christ in a very striking stunning way Pastor John alluded to it I believe last night in 1st Corinthians 16 verse 22 this heart allegiance Paul says if anyone does not love the Lord he is to be accursed there are cursed people and there are those who love Christ there is no other group that's the mark of true repentance Paul showed it from the positive side in Philippians 3:7 as Phil preached on earlier consider my former life to to be refuse for the sake of gaining Christ's total heart allegiance to Christ Christ was the centerpiece of Paul's heart repentance means that the old man dies and he dies gladly the new man loves Christ without limit and would never go back I've told people in the past if the if the old Don green ever showed up and I saw him I would take a ball bat to him I would beat him to death I hate him that much I would kill him thankfully Christ killed him for me well where does that leave us as we walk out this afternoon repentance and you that's the third main point I just want to give you a couple of things to just walk out of here with and apply it to your life I'm speaking to the believers now one of the challenges of preaching on repentance is that the preacher has to make care where he leaves the leaves this audience the whole point of this is to build you up not tear you down but the nature of repentance and teaching on repentance is so introspective that it it's kind of heavy I want you to remember this true repentance is a turning from self to Christ if you're a repentant you have Christ you have God overall most blessed forever as the one who owns you and directs your life and owns you and will bring you into heaven Christ belongs to you and you belong to him that's the whole point is to leave the old man behind for him the glory of belonging to him through true repentance should elevate your heart and cause you to rejoice so you rejoice secondly I would encourage you to recommit yourself to this true gospel don't be intimidated by the tolerance of our postmodern age understand and embrace the fact that the gospel is a direct confrontation with the spirit of our age we go out and preach the gospel and we tell men everywhere your life is not acceptable to God you must leave it behind and come to Christ or you will die in your sins don't be afraid of that embrace it it's the gospel that saved you right if it's a gospel that saved you it's the gospel that's going to save someone else and you can't back off on it and still be faithful to the one who saved you just commit it in your heart to settle it in your heart right now the next it Evangelistic opportunity I have I'm going to call that person to repentance and let God deal with their heart because a call to repentance stands out with power in times like these where everybody just wants to get along and tolerate one another thirdly to say this if you're here as a believer this whole teaching on repentance should should make you examine yourself and repent of any lingering sin in your own life those rotten attitudes the broken relationships the other things that we fall into understand that that that if Christ calls sinners to repent how more much more appropriate is for you and me as his people to repent of our sins if it's inappropriate for a sinner to live in sin how much more inappropriate is it for us vested belong to Christ to have any known conscious sin tolerated within our midst Charles Spurgeon said a Christian must never quit repenting for I fear that he never quits sinning now beloved repentance opens the door to grace let me finish with this passage from Paul in first Timothy Paul in his first letter to Timothy expresses the fruit and the Grace and the gratitude that marks the repentant heart he says I thank Christ Jesus our Lord first Timothy 1:12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful putting me into service even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor yet I was shown mercy because I acted out ignorantly in unbelief the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love found in Christ Jesus to trustworthy statement Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost and yet I found mercy so that Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience to me as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life beloved that is where we walk out this evening is believers in Christ we walk out in the themes of grace and mercy and faith and forgiveness of sin and hope of eternal life we have not repented in vain Christ has bestowed such abundant mercy on us and he will never fail us he will truly bring us into heaven and we will then begin to see the unfolding of God's eternal grace in our eyes so we're repentant and we confess our utter bankruptcy before God and yet in Christ we are lost in wonder love and praise to him about with me in prayer Paul went on to say now to the king eternal immortal invisible the only God be honor and glory forever and ever father seal your word to our hearts for your eternal glory we pray in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 76,749

Rating: 4.7744808 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Jesus, Christ, Lord, God, Gospel, Truth, Trust, Holy, Word, Salvation, repentance, Heaven, Beatitudes, sinner, hell, righteousness, unworthiness, theology, preach, foolishness, regenerate, faithful, Study, Preaching, Sermon, Spirit

Id: FfJTPkrQdZE

Length: 71min 14sec (4274 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2011