The Message of Repentance
To have forgiveness of sins and to live in
fellowship with God,
we must experience true repentance.
Here's Gene:
Repentance is a biblical word.
It's a biblical concept and it's illustrated
here by Matthew in relationship,
beginning with John the Baptist.
Now even though this is a biblical word,
I find that it's often misunderstood.
In fact, I grew up in a religious system
where, basically, people were taught that
if you do enough good things to make
things right that eventually God will forgive you.
That's not repentance, that's penance.
And penance is not biblical.
Penance is when you are trying to pay
for your own sins.
And there's no way we can pay for our own sins,
either as an unbeliever or a believer.
Salvation is a gift of God and repentance
is a part of being saved by grace through faith.
And so, we need to really understand this concept,
so we don't get confused.
Let's look at how John the Baptist used the word.
Matthew chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.
And I've called this John's message of repentance.
In those days John the Baptist came,
preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,
Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.
And of course, he's referring there to Jesus Christ
who has come and he's introducing Jesus Christ.
But he has some very strong words for
some of the religious leaders who came
to the baptism that he was performing.
And believe me, these were strong words.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and
Sadducees coming to the place of his baptism,
he said to them, Brood of vipers! ...
He called them snakes. You're a den of snakes.
Whoa, those are strong words.
...Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.
What is he saying?
You do not have fruit consistent with repentance.
In other words, you don't know God.
Your relationship with God is nothing but a ritual.
He says, you have no personal relationship with God.
There is, has been, no repentance in your life.
Now Paul helps us understand this.
When you get to book of Romans
and notice what he said.
He's talking about true believers but
he's addressing his own people, the Jews,
because he was one.
And he understood this because he was
one of them who had not experienced true repentance.
And here's what he said:
For person who is not a Jew who is one outwardly...
Now keep in mind, you know, Paul is writing to the
Gentile world. To the Jewish world here in
chapter 2. And then to the whole world.
But here he's zeroing in on his own people.
...[For] a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly,
and true circumcision is not something
visible in the flesh. ...
These scribes and Pharisees that came
that day and heard John the Baptist,
yah, they were circumcised
according to the law, but not in their hearts.
They had no relationship with God.
Paul goes on to explain that:
...On the contrary, a person is a Jew who
is one inwardly, and circumcision is of
the heart--by the Spirit, not the letter.
That man's praise is not from men but from God:.
And basically, what he's saying to these
religious leaders: The only reason you
perform what you do in your long robes
and all that is to have praise from men.
But he said: True praise from God is a
humble life where you have been
circumcised in your heart.
Translated into our life, generally that
means we have a true relationship with God.
Inwardly, not outwardly, but inwardly
and that's what true conversion is.
And so Paul explains that--helps us
to understand basically what John the Baptist
was saying when he first introduced Jesus.
John went on to say some more strong words
when he said this:
And don't presume to say to yourselves...
Now who's he speaking to? The religious leaders.
...Don't presume to say to yourselves,
We have Abraham as our father. ...
You say Abraham's your father?
In other words, just because you trace
your lineage back to Abraham,
you're not a child of God biologically.
You're a child of God through faith and
repentance and a relationship with God.
And that's true for all of us.
Our father and mother do not bring redemption
just simply because they were believers.
We all have to trust God,
be circumcised as it were, in our hearts.
...Don't presume to say to yourselves,
We have Abraham as our father.
For I tell you that God is able to raise up
children for Abraham from these stones!
Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the tree[s]!
Therefore, every tree that doesn't
produce good fruit will be cut down
and thrown into the fire.
In other words, what John is saying is:
You men, you religious leaders, there's no fruit.
Which means there has been no true repentance.
So he's addressing a relationship with
God through faith.
See repentance and faith are really
interrelated when it comes to salvation.
So we have here an illustration that
shows that with faith and repentance should come fruit.
James put it this way.
How do you recognize authentic faith?
For just as the body without the spirit is dead,
so also faith without works is dead.
In other words, faith brings salvation
but if its true authentic faith, it will
produce fruit reflecting true repentance.
That's what he's saying.
The same thing basically that John said.
Now, lets take it a step further.
You see repentance refers to that
initial relationship with God which these
religious leaders did not have.
Later, many of them did have that
relationship when they really accepted
Jesus as the Messiah.
But the word repentance also applies to
those of us who are already believers.
Because there are things we need to do
in terms of repentance even though we're believers.
And we see that illustrated in
Paul's second letter to the Corinthians,
when he wrote these words:
For even if I grieved you with my letter...
Now let me say a word here.
When he refers to a letter,
he's not referring to 1st Corinthians .
He's writing 2nd Corinthians, but there
was a letter between 1st and 2nd Corinthians,
which we call "the lost letter."
Where he wrote a letter to them and
really came down hard on their sin.
And they responded in repentance
because they were believers,
but they were living out of the will of God. So Paul says:
For even if I grieved you with my letter,
[I don't regret it,]
I do not regret it--even though I did regret
it since I saw that the letter grieved you,
yet only for a little while.
In other words he said:
When I heard how grieved you were,
I grieved that I even had to write it.
But he said: I'm not grieving anymore
because I'm rejoicing.
Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved,
but because your grief led to [what?] repentance.
So here you have an illustration of
repentance that is also applied to those
of us who are already believers.
So here we have really a functional definition
of what true repentance really is.
First of all, for salvation, which is really a
part of the faith experience.
But also as we come to Christ, we walk with Christ.
But if we walk out of the will of God,
also we need to turn our hearts back to God.
And that too is called repentance.
So here's the question:
John the Baptist proclaimed a message of repentance
when Jesus came the first time.
How should the certainty of His second coming
affect our message today?
John the Baptist was saying:
Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away
the sin of the world.
And he baptized Him and the Spirit came down--
came down and demonstrated this was
indeed the Son of God.
And in that message, he said: Repent.
But He's coming a second time. And so
how does that relate to His second coming?
Well the same way it relates to the first coming:
We need to repent.
And let me just say three things which is really a review.
We need to repent, first of all for salvation.
Not working for our salvation but
turning and going another way.
We're walking this way--the way of death.
We put our faith in Jesus. And because
it's a true authentic faith,
we walk in another direction.
That's basically true repentance.
Secondly, we need to repent as
believers because of God's grace in our lives.
When we walk out of the will of God,
because of His grace, we should turn
away from our sin, get back on the path
that is in the center of His will.
That's the second reason why we need
to take this word seriously.
And then thirdly--and this is a whole topic--
because of rewards.
I was just reviewing a book by my good friend
Joe Wall ,which is entitled "Going for the Gold."
And it's a study of the rewards that believers will have
because they've walked in the will of God.
And one of the reasons that we need to
walk in the will of God and repent is that
we don't want to be ashamed at the
judgement seat of Christ.
We'll be there as believers. We have salvation.
But if we haven't walked in His will,
it says that some believers will experience shame.
Not a loss of salvation. But I think it's a
motivating factor that we're going to stand
before the Lord Jesus, unashamed
because we have been able, within His grace,
to walk in His will.
Not perfectly but walking in His will,
discovering what His good, and faithful,
and perfect will is.
There are a number of rewards that
Jesus will give out at the judgement seat of Christ.
That is for all believers.
It's not unbelievers, but for all believers.
And the ultimate reason that we
receive rewards is not to gloat--
certainly it'll be rewarding--
but to lay them at the feet of Jesus.
That we will have rewards eternally to
lay at the feet of Jesus Christ because
He is worthy. He alone is worthy.
So lets remember this Principle to Live By:
To have forgiveness of sins and to live in
fellowship with God,
we must experience true repentance.