Is Repentance a Work?

The following is a pre-recorded version of CORE Christianity.

We'll be back live again on Monday. The Scriptures say we must repent and believe in order to be saved, but isn't repentance a work of man? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. This is the program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now and talk to Pastor Adriel live at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can email us with your question at questions at COREChristianity.com, and you can check us out on YouTube.

We have a live stream every day during this program. Well, Adriel, your kids are still pretty young, but in just a few years, you and your wife will experience that faithful day when they finally get their driver's license. No, we won't. Our middle child, she just turned 16, and she was determined to get her license the day after her birthday. Wow. Now, she passed the test.

She did with lime colors, did great. So far, things have gone pretty well, but I have to tell you, every time she borrows my car, the seat is pushed so far up, I am scrunched into the steering wheel. The radio is set so loud, my teeth are vibrating out of my gums. Also, there's the fast food wrappers and the cookie crumbs. So I would say to you, just be thankful that your kids are still in the big wheels stage.

Yeah. Well, part of me thinks, Bill, I can't ever let them. I'm just going to tell them, yeah, you can't get a driver's license in California until you're 21. That's just the law and see if they ever figure it out.

That way, I don't have to worry about it. I cannot imagine being in the car with one of my children driving me. Even when they're older, I just feel like that's terrifying. Well, I've seen them drive their big wheels in your side yard there. So I know they are little daredevils when it comes to the big wheels. Get out of the way.

I don't go out there when they're out there in the big wheels. Oh, gosh. Well, let's get to our first question. We have Gaylene from Topeka, Kansas, on the line. Gaylene, welcome to CORE Christianity. Yeah. Hi. I want to know how could you get rid of sin?

How could you? I try fasting, prayer, because I want to do the work for the Lord. And if you're just with the work I do for the Lord, and you got the flesh and you got the demonic, you got all these things, all working three is coming at me. So we're all full force.

Yeah. Well, Gaylene, I really appreciate the question. I think it's the heart of every believer, right? We have the Spirit of God living in us by faith in Jesus Christ. We hate our sin. And yet we're in this battle with our own flesh. I mean, Paul talked about it in Romans 7, in Galatians 5. There's this very real battle that takes place where, despite the fact that we're born again, that the Spirit of God lives in us, we still experience these temptations, these desires, these things that we don't want in our lives, and yet it's this constant battle. And the reality is it's going to be a battle until we're in the presence of the Lord. John said in 1 John 1, verse 8, if anyone says they're without sin, they're a liar and the truth is not in them.

And I know from your question, what you just said, that's not what you think. I mean, your question is how can I put to death the sin in my life? And the answer that the apostle Paul gives in Romans chapter 6 through 8 is only by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, it's not going to happen through trying to muscle through it, that kind of a thing. It's the grace of the Spirit. It's as we're walking by the Spirit and not according to the flesh, like Paul said in Galatians 5.

And what does it mean to walk by the Spirit? Well, it means to be saturated in the word of God, in prayer. Ultimately, we do that when we're resting in and receiving the grace that God has given to us in the gospel. One of the things that I love about the section that I just mentioned in the book of Romans in Romans 6 through 18 is Paul gives there a lot of great direction for how to fight the sin in our lives.

And one thing I would encourage you to do is meditate maybe on those three chapters of scripture, Romans 6, 7, and 8. And Paul begins there in Romans chapter 6 by saying, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? How can we who died to sin still live in it? Did you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. One thing in terms of being able to fight the sin in our lives that's key, and maybe the most key thing, is recognizing your new identity in Jesus Christ. That by faith in Jesus you've been baptized into his death, Galen. You're already dead to sin. Your sins are forgiven.

That's done. Now we're called to walk in that new reality by putting to death the sins that we still struggle with. But you need to know that you belong to the Lord by faith in Jesus. You can rest in that reality and that now by the grace of the Holy Spirit as you walk with the Lord day by day, he's going to work in you to put to death the sin in your life. And so I would encourage you in that way and then I would also say if you're not a part of a good church, a church that's preaching the word of God faithfully where you have other believers around you that can encourage you, I think that is also very important in terms of the fight against sin.

The Christian life was not meant to be lived in isolation on our own. And so, Galen, that's the other thing I would say. Are you a part of a good church right now, Galen? Yeah, I know a faith temple.

Okay. It's filled with the Holy Ghost and everything. Yeah, we have it all. We have Bible study and we do stuff like that. And so I just want to know I've been having some struggle with my reading the Bible and the other stuff that's going on in my life. Well, look, let me pray for you right now and continue to press in to be a part of the fellowship, to dig into the word, and ultimately to rest in the fact that God is not going to let go of you, Galen, that he's going to continue to work in you and he's going to use his word to continue to sanctify you. So, Father, I pray for Galen.

Thank you just for the desire to walk with you, to know you, to love you, and to fight against sin. Oh, God, that's what you call us to as your people, to put to death the sinful deeds of the body. But we know that we can't do it in our own strength, Lord. It's only by the grace of your spirit. And so would you grant that grace to Galen? Would you bring victory, we pray? And in the daily fight with sin, just direct all the attention to Jesus, to his work, to the forgiveness that we have in him, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you so much for your call. You know, Adriel, I was thinking about that passage you mentioned in the book of Romans, in the end of Romans 7, when Paul is talking about his own personal struggle with sin. You know, the things that I want to do, I don't do, the things I don't want to do, I keep on doing.

You know, who's going to save me from this wretched body of death? And then you get to the first part of chapter 8, and what does he say? There is then no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What an amazing promise. Yeah, it is. And that's what we have to lay hold of in the struggle with sin. You know, it's easy to not believe that, to feel condemned, to feel beat up. You know, there's actually an article that I wrote over at corechristianity.com called Four Things to Remember After You've Sinned. And I think it's important for us to be encouraged by the Word of God and to go to passages like this one in Romans 8, verse 1, that remind us of the fact that as believers in Jesus, we've been justified, we are justified, and now we get to walk as the children of God. Now, we don't do that perfectly, but that doesn't mean God abandons us.

He's going to continue to be with us and to raise us up when we fail. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's the phone number to call if you have a question.

It's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Opal, who's calling in from St. Louis, Missouri. Hi, Opal. Hi. Hi, Opal. What's your question? I want to know, when I talk to God, I pray about everything, everybody.

I live in a senior citizen complex. I pray about everybody in my building. But I want to know, when I talk to God, I talk to him just like I'm talking to you. Am I praying?

You are, Opal. I mean, I think when we talk to the Lord, I mean, Paul says, pray without ceasing. You know, I think our entire lives throughout the day, from the moment we wake up in the morning to the time when we lay our head down on our pillow, we ought to be praying. And sometimes that's what it looks like. It looks like just saying, Lord, and talking to the Lord in the middle of, you know, doing your laundry or going to get groceries.

I think that that is totally okay. And I think it's something that we should do, is we should cultivate this habit of prayer in our lives. Now, how is it that we should pray? Well, we pray to the Father, through Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It's important for us to understand this because it helps us to have confidence when we pray, Opal. We go to the Father, not standing in our own righteousness. We have access to him, not because we're perfect or pure. We have access to the Father through Jesus, his Son. That's what it means to pray in Jesus's name, by the way.

A lot of people are confused. You know, why do we end our prayers like that? Well, we're coming to the Father through the Son, and that's what gives us confidence. We can go to the Father because through Jesus, you've been adopted into the family of God.

Jesus, by his sacrifice for you, has made you a child of God. And so you can go to the Father as one of his children all day, throughout the day, speaking to him, praying for others. And this is what we're encouraged to do in the New Testament in various places, also in the Old Testament. Prayer is just such a central part of the Christian life, and it's what the apostles encouraged. It's what Jesus himself encouraged. I'm always struck by the fact that, you know, on one occasion in the Gospels, the disciples asked Jesus, you know, teach us how to pray. Isn't that just an amazing question? They did say teach us how to do miracles, teach us how to walk on water.

I mean, that's the kind of thing I would want to ask. They say teach us how to pray because they realized that prayer was so central to his ministry. And I want you to just hear what the apostle Paul said, and I think this is right in line with what you're talking about, Opal. He says in 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 1, First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.

For kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And Opal, it sounds like that's what you're doing in your life is praying for people throughout the day, and so I want to encourage you to keep doing that, sister. Thank you so much. Sometimes I wake up in the night and I be praying to God and I fall back to sleep, and I say, now, I wake up, I say, now, God, where were we?

Yeah. I just want to make sure I was doing the right thing. Thank you so much. Well, the Lord bless you, Opal. You keep on being the prayer warrior that you are, and thank you for your service to Christ Church. Man, what an inspiration for all of us.

Thank you, Opal. That just warms our heart to hear that, and something all of us should be doing, right? Praying without ceasing.

Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and today we want to offer you a very special resource that Adriel himself has produced. It's called Seeing Jesus. Yes, I really want you to get a hold of this resource, not just because I wrote it, but because I think it's going to help you set your eyes on Jesus. There's nothing more important for us than truly knowing Christ and walking with Him. And how do we see Jesus today?

I'm not talking about dreams and visions here. I'm talking about understanding how Jesus has revealed Himself to us in His Word. And there are so many things about how Jesus has revealed Himself to us in His Word that I think Christians today oftentimes miss. And so this resource, it's a sort of four-week devotional, Seeing Jesus. It's going to help you hone in on elements of Jesus's ministry, His identity, that so often people today miss. I hope you'll get your hands on Seeing Jesus. I know it's going to encourage you in your walk with the Lord. To sign up to receive a free copy of Seeing Jesus, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash Jesus. You can also call us at 833-843-2673 for help getting any one of our offers. That's 833 the core. By the way, when you go to our website at corechristianity.com, if you click on today's show notes page, you can find today's offer and any of the resources mentioned on this program. Well, let's get to a voicemail that we received at 833 the core.

My name is Bill from North Carolina. My question is, how does repentance play into or what part of salvation is repentance? Because it seems like it's integral to salvation, and yet it also seems like it's something that I do. I believe salvation is of the Lord and that works play no part in it, and yet I'm commanded to repent and to turn away from my sin. How does that square with the New Testament? Thank you.

Hey Bill, thank you for that very important question, and I want to clear this up for you. I think there are different ways in which people define repentance that can make this confusing. If we're thinking about repentance as that sort of ongoing thing that's happening in the Christian life, which we do every day as Christians, we're called to repent of our sins, and we know that we still have sin. We're going to continue to have sin until the day that we die, so it's this lifelong process. Then if it's a part of salvation, well then how can I ever know if I'm saved? Because every day I have to repent, that kind of a thing. Our repentance right now is always going to be imperfect, and so we don't base our salvation on the perfection of our repentance, our ongoing repentance throughout the Christian life.

That's something that God is working in us, and I want to talk about that a little bit more in a second, but when we think about just repentance as this sort of repentance into life, the initial turning to Jesus, we would say yeah, that's absolutely integral to salvation, and here's what it is. It's recognizing that we're sinners. It's identifying our sin for what it is.

It's not minimizing it, downplaying, denying it. We're saying no, I've sinned against you, Lord. We're coming to an understanding that only comes from the Holy Spirit, that we have sin, and it's turning from those sins to Christ, and so there's a negative aspect of repentance where it's turning away from our sin. We're realizing what it is, how heinous it is in God's sight, but it's not just sort of wallowing in sorrow. It's turning away from our sin to Jesus.

It's got this positive element as well. There's hope there, and it's so important for us to communicate this. Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, he talked about how this is the difference between Judas and Peter. You know, Judas, he was remorseful about what he had done, but he didn't turn to Jesus to receive grace.

He just sort of wallowed in his misery and took his own life. Peter, on the other hand, just like Judas, denied the Lord, and yet he felt the guilt, the shame of his sin, and yet he turned to Jesus and laid hold of Christ, and so that's the role that repentance has in salvation. It's a saving grace. We turn away from our sin to Jesus, and you're right, it's something that we do, just like faith. Faith is something that we exercise, but both faith and repentance, Bill, are gifts given to us by God. It's God himself who's working in us, and that's precisely what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13. You know, he gives this exhortation, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, and then he says, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure, and so the reason we can rejoice and rest in the fact that it's not us being saved by our works, it's, no, this is something that God has accomplished in us, in his people. We're not saved by the perfection of our repentance. We're saved by laying hold of Jesus Christ by faith. Faith alone, that's what saves us, and having been saved by faith, justified, we get to walk in repentance, and that's something that the Spirit of God is going to work in you and continue to work in all Christians day by day, making us more and more into the image of his son, Jesus. And so, Bill, thank you for that question. May the Lord bless you, and by the way, a resource I want to point you to over at corechristianity.com.

It's an article that I wrote, actually. It's called True versus False Repentance, What's the Difference? I unpack some of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians Chapter 7 to help define repentance a little bit further there, so check out that resource. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's get to another call.

Frank is calling from San Diego. Hi, Frank, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yeah, my question would be, like, the word millennium. I know, like, in the book of Revelation, like, Revelation 20 is talked about a lot of debate on Revelation 20, and going through a Bible study with some friends of mine through the book of Revelation right now, we're not there yet, but, you know, there's different approaches, and so I just wanted to know if Pastor Adriel can pretty much just give a brief explanation on the eschatological views and how he would define the millennium or that millennial kingdom language that, you know, Christians sometimes disagree. Thank you.

Yeah, Frank, thank you. I'm encouraged by the fact that you're studying the book of Revelation with a group of friends. You know, it's one of those books that a lot of people think, I'm just not going to touch that one with a 10-foot pole, much less get together with a group of Christians to try to study it, and you're right, there's a lot of controversy around the book of Revelation, in particular, in different views of the end times, and you went to the right text to think about the millennium, Revelation chapter 20. There are some Christians who believe that that's a future literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on the earth. There are other Christians that view the millennial reign of Christ as something that's happening right now, that the 1,000 years isn't a literal 1,000 years, but that it's symbolic for this long period of time, this age in between Christ's first coming and his second coming when he returns to judge the whole world, and so there are different views, but let me boil it down to this. When we're thinking about eschatological views, you use that word, not me, it's a big word, it just refers to the study of the last things, the study of the end times. When we're thinking about that, the key that we have to understand and embrace as Bible-believing Christians is that Jesus Christ is bodily coming back. He ascended into heaven, we see at the very beginning of the book of Acts, and we can all together affirm that he's coming back and that he's going to come back to judge the whole world, and that's something that all Bible-believing Christians agree on, and so that's what I like to focus on when we're talking about the last things, the end times, is that kernel of truth that we all agree with as believers. Now, as you mentioned and as I said, the differences on the millennial reign of Christ, and those are, I think, important for us to discuss, but I would say focus on the fact that we're looking forward to the coming of Jesus, and we want to live in light of his second coming as believers right now, and so that's the key, brother, and I pray that the Lord continues to bless you as you dig into the book of Revelation.

Hey, thanks, Frank. By the way, we have a resource, a new Bible study coming out on the book of Revelation, so be watching our website for that, corechristianity.com. This is one that's going to really help you understand that somewhat mysterious book at the end of the Bible. That's right. Well, let's get to one more question.

This one is from Leah, who posted on our Instagram account. She says, I've seen a lot of people saying things to prove the Bible is not real. I really want to be closer to God, but I'm worried that can't happen if I don't fully believe the Bible. Is there proof? Leah, I would say absolutely there is all sorts of proof that supports the accounts that we find in scripture. One thing that I sometimes point to is the prophetic testimony. Isaiah chapter 46, 9 and 10, God said, I am the Lord, I am God, and there is none other declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done. In other words, God says, look, I'm the Lord and my word is true. I've given this divine revelation. Here's how you can know that it's true, that this isn't just people making stuff up.

I'm going to tell you the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that have not yet been done. The fact of the matter is, Leah, that's something that we see all over the place, especially related to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Isaiah 52 and 53, Psalm 22, even the very beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, you have the first presentation of the gospel promise where God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. The entire Bible testifies to this one great reality of how God is redeeming sinners and how he's done it through his son, Jesus, whom he sent into the world. Frankly, I think that that is an amazing testimony and a powerful thing that we can point to as Christians to confirm the fact that the Bible really is God's word, but then there's also all sorts of other evidences.

You think of the archaeological evidence, you think about the historical evidence. There are so many things that we can look at that help to bolster our faith as Christians in the veracity of the word of God. And so, sister, I want to encourage you, and I think that there are plenty of resources over at corechristianity.com that you could look at, that would help you as you want to defend your faith.

One resource that we often point to is Greg Cokle's book, The Story of Reality. Check that one out. But you can rest in the fact that the Bible is true. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.