October 16, 2011 Repentance III
10.16.11
(ashes demonstration)
put on ashes when they repent
have you had ashes on your head this week? month? year?
The more I teach on this the more concerned I am that few of us ever repent.
(I could count on one hand how many times in seven years I have seen someone repent of an actual sin.)
Mt. 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (summary statement of Jesus’ preaching)
Luke 24:46-47 He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Acts 2 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
I. What is repentance?
1. “changing your mind”
seeing a sin in your life (not been seeing)
naming the sin as evil before God and people: change from engaged in it to being sad about it and hating it
Joel 2:12-13
12 “Even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
13 Rend your heart and not your garments.
2. “turning around”
turning from sin to obedience, rejecting what you have been doing, turning before you begin to walk (obey)
Acts 20:21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance
3. not just being sad about the past
but being excited about forgiveness
some think repentance is a downer: no!
repentance should be the highlight of your life. on the mountain top. It brings you full delight in the gospel.
Isaiah 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…”
Ezekiel 18:32 “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!”
4. not just about admitting you are a sinner
but naming actual, specific actions, words, feelings, thoughts, motivations
Numbers 21:7
5. not just unbelievers should repent
We see this in Revelation when Jesus tells believers to repent and 2 Corinthians 7 when Paul says he is happy he made them sad because it led to repentance
6. All of life should be repentance
Luther: “When Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “repent,” he willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”
How do you get there (to the point of repenting)?
1. Read God’s commands and take them seriously.
they confront us
only real response to them is repentance
is your standard God’s law or is it the people around you (comparison)?
Jesus commands will break you
if you take them seriously. That is good!
Don’t despair. Repent and find full forgiveness in Jesus.
“Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” (Mt. 5)
2. Ask the Spirit to examine you and search you. Don’t trust your own opinion of yourself.
3. Look for the areas where you are complaining against God.
Numbers 21:5
many sins have complaint behind them
someone sins sexually because they are complaining against God about their spouse or their singleness
a person gets angry with someone else or hates someone because they are complaining against God about this person in their lives
a person is controlled by selfish ambition,
jealousy, covetousness, envy, greed,
anxiety, at the root of those things is a protest against God
What happens if you do not repent?
1. you will not be living out of faith
faith and repentance two sides of the same coin, can’t be separated
Acts 20:21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
have no meaning apart from each other
so if you have no repentance today then you have no faith today
2. you will no longer be able to hear the gospel
Nothing is more uninteresting and dull than the gospel and preaching.
To one who doesn’t recognize the concrete sin in his life.
Bonhoeffer: if someone is dull to the gospel, there is unrecognized sin that must be exposed and confessed.
3. you will no longer have the joy
Heidelberg 2
“What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?”
“first, how great my sin and miseries are
second, how I may be delivered from them
third, how I shall express my thanks to God”
Someone who is not continually repenting of sin forgets how great his sins are and then loses the joy of his deliverance and stops giving thanks.
4. you will not be able to obey in the area you need to repent
obedience is the “fruit of repentance” (Mt. 3:8) Acts 26:20 “prove their repentance by their deeds”
You can’t obey a commandment until you repent of disobedience to that commandment.
Disobedience grows and hardens you in sin. Repentance breaks that.
5. You will become proud: don’t see your sin and have high opinion of self, condemn others — like the Pharisees
you will make light of your sin, never admit to anything, excuse yourself
no one likes to be told they are wrong
6. You will believe the false gospel of God doesn’t care about sin anymore
God overlooks sin, doesn’t bother him now,
when you sin “it is all good”, don’t matter
like the child who says: “I’m a sinner but everybody is a sinner.” Who cares? God forgives it all? Why worry about it?
“God will forgive our sins. That is his job.”
So don’t worry about it.
God does not justify sin, he justifies sinners who repent of sin
Many children are raised believing this gospel. This is why it means nothing to them. They have never truly repented thought they have believed truths.
7. You will remain an infant in Christ
as Paul says to the Corinthians
because they are living in open sin and proud, not repentant
I see many such people, raised in the church, but no sense of sin and salvation.
8. You will fall under God’s displeasure and grieve the Spirit within you (Eph 4:30)
Psalm 32:1-7
*
Numbers 21:8-9
God has told us to look to Jesus and we will be forgiven of all sin and saved from death.
But we lose the feeling of salvation when we do not repent.
repentance was the beginning of every great revival that I have ever read about
a powerful sense of personal sin
revivals always began with weeping
a powerful new sense of the gospel
they developed into great joy in the old truths
Do you want revival in your life? Revival in this church? Pray that we would see our sin.
As a Christian you are loved and justified and God will never abandon you
loves sinner, hates sin
you have broken contact with him
(as a teenager I went in my room)
but when you do repent he restores you to experience forgiveness and love again
CONCLUSION
we are forgiven because of what Christ did not because of what we do
we don’t buy salvation by the strength of our repentance
we are sinners so everything we do is imperfect
repentance is always impartial and incomplete
not tears or ashes or beating up yourself
Jesus saves
not tears but the blood of Jesus which saves you
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