The Gospel & Salvation: True Repentance Part 2

CTW – Psalm 51

Repentance – Part 2

Selected Scriptures

 This morning I want to share part two on the subject of repentance. Let me explain how this fits with our series on the gospel and the work of salvation. We have studied extensively the problem of sin. In the week before resurrection day and Resurrection Day we looked at the solution which is none other than Jesus Christ. We are now looking at what must happen if we are to participate in the solution. We are answering the question asked in response to the message of salvation preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost. We are answering the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Peter’s answer included first a clear call to repentance. 

Last week we saw how repentance has consistently been the call of God to sinners. The Old Testament prophets consistently called people to repentance. John the Baptist called both the sinners and the self-righteous to repent. Jesus began preaching the gospel by calling sinners to repent and believe the gospel. Peter preached a gospel of repentance. The other apostles preached the same message. Paul preached the gospel of repentance from sin and faith toward God. There is only one gospel. 

Please listen to these fundamental truths of the gospel. By the eternal plan of God from eternity past, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin, and was born the God-Man; Jesus of Nazareth. As a man He walked in perfect obedience to the law of God. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was tempted in all things as we are, yet He was without sin. In the fullness of time, men rejected and crucified Him. On the Cross, Jesus bore man’s sin, suffered God’s wrath, and died as the innocent substitute in place of the sinner. 1 Peter 2:24 tells us the He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. 

On the third day, God raised Him from the dead. This resurrection is the divine declaration that the Father has accepted His Son’s death as a sufficient sacrifice for the sinner’s sin. Jesus paid the penalty for man’s disobedience and rebellion. He satisfied the demands for justice, and completely appeased the wrath of God. Romans 4:25 says, “He (Jesus) was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised again because of our justification.”

Forty days after the resurrection, the Son of God ascended into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of God, and was given glory, honor, and dominion over all. Hebrews 1:3 says, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” There, in the presence of God, Jesus represents His people and makes requests to God on their behalf. Hebrews 7:25 tells us, “He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

How is man to respond to all God has done? All who acknowledge their sinful, helpless condition and throw themselves upon Christ, God will fully pardon, declare righteous, and reconcile to Himself. This is the gospel of God, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the gospel of the apostles. Those are the high points, if you will. There is more than enough truth in that message for the sinner to be saved, but we want to understand the gospel as fully as it can be understood. So we dig into the doctrines of the faith.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. Salvation is life transforming. No one is saved who is not to be made a new creation in Christ Jesus. If the church preaches anything other than this message of salvation, the church will be filled with unconverted and carnal individuals who have little interest in biblical truth, genuine fellowship with true believers, heartfelt worship, or opportunities to serve within the body of Christ. I think there are far too many who attend church, but who have little interest in biblical truth, and they avoid genuine fellowship for fear that the truth about them may be exposed, and they have never known heartfelt worship, and to get them to do anything in service to the body is like trying to get a politician to tell the truth. There is little chance it is going to happen.

So we must preach the true gospel, even in the church, because the unconverted are in the church. We preach the gospel to every person. We have been commissioned to take the good news to all the world. And when the gospel is preached, man should, and will respond. Man will not always respond as he should, but man will respond. Sometimes the response is rejection of the truth and the hardening of the heart. We hope this is not the case. If the sinner responds as he or she should, we saw last week that the sinner is to repent.

Repentance has several aspects. After establishing the importance of repentance last week, we began to look at these aspects. The first aspect we talked about was that repentance involves a change of mind, or a change of thinking. Repentance involves the enlightenment to a new understanding of truth, and the respective change that results from this new insight. One of the best examples of this was Saul of Tarsus. He was radically self-righteous, believing his standing before God was perfect because of his fastidious devotion to the law of God. His unexpected encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus resulted in a total transformation of thinking. He now understood that there was nothing good in him and that he had to be saved by the grace of God alone. If you missed last week let me encourage you to go listen to the message.

Today I want to share a few other aspects of repentance as a response to the gospel. Not only is repentance a change of thinking and understanding of truth, it involves brokenness over sin. The sinner who repents is sorrowful, filled with regret, contrite, ashamed, even loathing the sin that has separated him or her from God. The repentant person is humble before God and ready for the remedy that will make him right with a holy God.

Listen to the attitude of the people of Israel after they were confronted with their idolatry and unfaithfulness to God. This is recorded in Jeremiah 3:25, “Let us lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day. And we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.” When confronted with the revelation, the new understanding of their sinfulness before a holy God, the people were sorrowful, and filled with regret. They were contrite, ashamed, and even loathing the sin they had committed in rebellion against holy God. They humbled themselves in honest confession and repentance.

The prophet Ezekiel tells of the coming day when Israel will recognize the truth about their sin against the Lord. Ezekiel 20:43 describes their response to this revelation of truth. “There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done.” This will be the experience of the people of Israel someday, but it is also a description of the repentant heart of the sinner who comes to see what his or her sin has done to separate from God.

This aspect of repentance is illustrated clearly in the parable Jesus told in Luke 18 about the Pharisee and the tax collector. Look at Luke 18:13-14. The tax collector was sorrowful over his sin. He was broken, filled with regret, contrite, ashamed, and loathing the sin that had separated him from God. He was humble before God and hungry for the remedy that would make him right with God. His attitude is demonstrated in his position and posture. This is the brokenness over sin that reflects the one who is truly repentant. 

It is also consistent with the message of the Beatitudes where Jesus declared, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matt. 5:4) The sinner who gains an understanding of the sinfulness of sin will come to understand his spiritually impoverished condition. He will be poor in spirit. (Matt. 5:3) Having come to an understanding of that reality, he or she will mourn over the fact that the sinner is helplessly and hopelessly separated from God by sin. This produces the sorrow and regret and contrition and humility demonstrated by the tax collector. This brokenness over our sin becomes the motivation that compels us to cry out to God for mercy.

In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul reveals something about the connection between sorrow for sin and repentance. In 2 Cor. 7:10 Paul writes, “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Perhaps the best example of the sorrow of the world that produces death is seen in Judas Iscariot. He betrayed Jesus. He was sorry for his actions. He regretted what he had done. He took the money back to the religious leaders. Then he went out and hanged himself. His sorrow and regret was not the sorrow that is according to the will of God producing repentance without regret leading to salvation. 

We read in Psalm 51:17 something which David had come to understand. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” David explains that this brokenness is exactly what God is looking for as a response to the truth of his sinfulness. Isaiah 66:2 describes for us this declaration from the Lord, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Isaiah 57:15 tells us this, “For thus says the high and exalted One, who lives forever, whose name is Holy, ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit, in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Let’s look at another aspect of repentance. Repentance involves personal accountability for sin. We must come to see that we have sinned against a holy God. Like David, we understand that our sin is against Him. It is me who has sinned and I am responsible for my sin. I am guilty. I am deserving of divine judgment.

Never has the world in which we live and share the gospel needed the message of repentance more than now. The idea of personal accountability for sin is contrary to contemporary thinking for at least two reasons. We could probably think of more, but you will recognize these. First, most people do not see themselves as guilty sinners, but rather see themselves as basically good people. They will admit they are not perfect, but that will quickly tell you that they are not deserving of eternal condemnation. “Hitler deserves that, not me!”

The other way in which sinners avoid personal accountability for sin is through the blame game. If the sinner admits he doesn’t measure up to God’s standards, it isn’t his fault. He is the victim. If he is addicted to drugs or alcohol or porn his addiction is a sickness. If it can be defined as a sickness then it really isn’t the sinner’s fault. This is all a deceitful ploy to provide the sinner an escape from personal responsibility. This is part of the world’s attempts to excuse sinfulness and self-justify our failures. This approach to sin is so popular and effective in deceiving people because it comes from the false religion self, self-esteem, self-gratification, and self-exaltation. No one can be saved by that false religion. All sinners need to see themselves as responsible for their sin and in need of God’s solution. This is found in the religion of divine accomplishment.

Turn to Romans 3:10-17 for a moment. This is God’s indictment against us as sinners. This is the truth of God’s word. Which message resonates more with the sinner? Would the sinner rather hear the message, “I’m ok and you are ok. We are all just victims of our environment. It is society’s fault. My problems are the result of the lack of opportunity, or the lack of education, or the horrible upbringing of my strict parents, or my abusive parents,” or any other likely target at which the sinner can point the finger of blame? The sinner likes the idea of blaming someone else rather than taking personal responsibility for sin.

Repentance involves personal responsibility for sin. We must come before God with an honest, humble transparency and a heartfelt confession of sin before God. David did this. He said in Psalm 51:4, “Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when you judge.” This is David’s confession that God is right and he was the sinner.

Taking personal responsibility for our sin will lead us to confess our sins. The word “confess” literally means “to speak the same thing.” When, as we saw last week, the Holy Spirit reveals truth and brings understanding, and convicts us of sin, righteousness, and judgment, we don’t argue, or defend ourselves, or blame someone or something else. We speak in agreement with Him and God’s word. We speak the same thing as God speaks. What God calls sin is sin and when I am guilty of sin I am the responsible person who has sinned against God. This was so clearly revealed in the plea of the tax collector. He pleaded with God, “Be merciful to me, the sinner.”

There is a fourth aspect of repentance. Repentance involves turning away from sin and turning to God. As we saw last week, the reputation of the Thessalonian Christians was that they didn’t just turn from idols, they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. (1 Thess. 1:9) True repentance isn’t just turning from sin and trying to stop doing what we have become convinced is sinful. We turn from the sin and turn to God and the new pursuit of life is the righteousness which reflects the transformed heart.

This too was part of the message of the prophets of the Old Testament. God commanded Ezekiel, in Ez. 14:6 saying, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ “Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.” God had always given the people of Israel the light and truth concerning Himself and the proper way to worship Him. Implied in the prophet’s message is the call to turn from idols and turn back to the living and true God.

Ezekiel 18:30-31 also contains the Lord’s call to the people. “Therefore I will judge you O house of Israel, each according to his conduct, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn away from all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel?” We read 2 Chronicles 7:14 last week but it fits here as well. That verse calls the sinful people of Israel to “humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways.” True repentance involves turning from sin and turning to God to serve the living and true God.

Let’s put these various aspects together. Repentance involves new thinking, new understanding, new insight regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is given by the Holy Spirit of God. This should lead to the second aspect, which is brokenness over sin. We understand we have been broken by the law’s demands. We are guilty and deserving judgment. This brings us to the place where we must take personal responsibility for our sinful rebellion against God, and humble ourselves. It isn’t anyone’s fault but my own. I am the sinner who stands in need of God’s mercy. I confess my sin. Then, I must turn from my sin, and it isn’t enough to just stop sinning, I must turn to God from the idol of self, and pursue the righteous life of service to the living and true God.

If our lives are marked by all aspects of genuine repentance, our lives will be marked by a practical obedience. Anyone can boast of a love for God, but Jesus made it perfectly clear that we demonstrate our love for Him by our obedience to His commands. John the Baptist called sinners to repent and to bear fruit worthy of repentance. It will be the fruit of the tree that bears witness to the true character of that tree. Jesus made that clear in the sermon on the mount. Paul’s message to King Agrippa reveals that his message included the call to repent, turn to God, and to perform deeds appropriate to repentance.

The final aspect of repentance I want to share today is the ongoing repentance that marks the life of the genuine follower of Christ. Just because we understand repentance and turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, this does not mean that we will no longer struggle with sin. True Christians will experience progress as we grow in Christ. We will experience greater and greater victory over sin. Our sanctification, or the work of God to conform us to the image of His Son, will become more evident the longer we are in Christ. But we will never be completely free from the presence and power of sin in this life.

This is the beauty of repentance. This is the value of God’s call to repentance. We will always stand in need of the divine gift of repentance to continually turn from sin to God and the pursuit of holiness. Repentance is not a one time act. The repentance that takes place at conversion begins a progressive, lifelong process of confession of sin and turning from sin to obedience. This is why 1 John 1:9 is so important to us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

As we close this morning I want to encourage some self-evaluation. I often remind you that we do not study God’s word for information purposes. We study for transformation purposes. If there is some work of God to be done in our lives by the word of God and the Holy Spirit, we want that work to happen.

So, in a time of self-evaluation, please consider a few questions about your own repentance. First, have you ever come to the place of understanding the truth about your sin and what it has done to separate you from holy God? Have you ever seen yourself as a vile, guilty sinner who must have mercy from God, or you will perish?

Has this understanding of sin produced a brokenness, a sorrow and contrition which has caused you to mourn over your plight? Have you ever truly humbled yourself before God in brokenness, contrition, and remorse? Or, do you still try to defend yourself, or declare yourself not such a bad person?

Have you come to accept full responsibility for your sin? Or, do you find it easier to blame something or someone else for your sins. Perhaps you won’t call sin, sin. You may find it easier to justify your actions as “mistakes.” 

Have you ever, in repentance, turned from your sin to God to serve the true and living God? If so, has your spiritual journey been characterized by ongoing and continual confession of and turning from the residual sin in your life? Without this, you will not see the spiritual growth that characterizes the true child of God.

Maybe this whole issue could be simplified to one basic question? Do you hate sin and desire to be free from its power in your life? If I had to summarize repentance in a sentence or two I would have to say that repentance produces a hatred for sin and a desire to be free from its presence and power in my life. I know I have been delivered from the penalty for sin, but I also want to be free from its presence and power. 

Or, do you secretly love your sin and seek to keep it hidden in darkness so you can enjoy its pleasures as long as possible? Your answer will reveal much about your relationship to Christ.

Let’s pray.