True Repentance - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. If somebody is really in sin, you're more likely to just try to encourage them along. Give them all the comfort you can, and that's it.

But you know, sometimes people need surgery instead of therapy. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. The date was September the 11th, 1998, and President Bill Clinton was about to speak at a prayer breakfast at the White House. Earlier that year, in January, he had ended a televised speech to all of us by wagging his finger and then saying, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. After months of legal maneuvering, on August the 17th, he had to answer questions under oath to a grand jury. Because of that testimony, he had gone on national television that night and carefully worded an admission. He said, well, my answers were legally accurate.

I did not volunteer information. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was inappropriate. In fact, it was wrong. Well, the public remained unconvinced. And in fact, many people felt that that statement raised more questions than it gave us answers. And so we come to September the 11th, 1998 at the White House at a prayer breakfast.

This is what the president said. I was not contrite enough. I don't think there's a fancy way to say that I have sinned. It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know the sorrow I feel is genuine.

I have asked for their forgiveness, but I believe that to be forgiven more than sorrow is required. At least two more things. First, genuine repentance, a determination to change and to set repair breaches of my own making.

Secondly, he says what the Bible calls a broken spirit, an understanding that I must have God's help to be the person that I want to be. And no matter what your political persuasion, those are remarkable words from any politician, let alone the president of the most powerful country on earth. There were two responses.

The first response was for many was that's good enough for me. Let's move on. And then there was a second response from those antagonistic to him that the man's a liar. He lied in the past. He's lying in the present. He'll lie in the future.

I have no interest in renewing that debate. But I am very interested in the questions that his repentance raises. Question one. What are the marks of true repentance? Question number two would be, does true repentance happen in a moment or is it a process? And number three, this true repentance eliminate the consequences of sin. We have been in a series for some time that I called forgiveness, the cornerstone of all the keystone of all relationships. And almost all of these sermons have dealt with our forgiving others. But I think what we need to also discuss is what happens when we.

Are the perpetrators. What happens when we do this in not only against God, but against others? If you remember last time I was in Luke Chapter 17 and I Luke wrote this, if your brother sins rebuke him and if he or she repents, forgive them. And if he or she sins against you seven times in a day and comes back to you seven times and says, I repent, forgive them. And so I said in that sermon the last time that we we have to, in a sense, deal with sin honestly. And we have to confront sin courageously. But we also have to own the sin repentantly. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, that's kind of a strange word for us, isn't it? It's amazing that a president would even use it. Repentance or repent.

It seems like it's about 100 years out of date. It's not something we really discuss at all. And boy, that's really unfortunate because without repentance, as I understand the scriptures. Your life can really have no joy.

You really can't have inner happiness that is immune to the circumstances of life. Your life will have no peace. The spirit of God that now indwells you as a believer in Jesus Christ will continue to convict you.

You have no hope, no certitude of your future. You have no real meaning or purpose to God. It's sort of the idea that sin is crouching at the door and sin now has a hold of you. Repentance is absolutely without question one of the keys to living the Christian life. There is no place in the word of God where repentance gets a more clear understanding than in the book of Second Corinthians.

Now, the reason I say that is that of all the epistles that Paul wrote, this is the most personal. Paul had sort of ambivalence toward the Corinthians. It's the worst church, by the way, in the New Testament by a mile.

There's no one even close to second. This is a church that had nothing but problems. But in Second Corinthians, Paul was writing because there were people in that church that did not like Paul at all. And in fact, they made accusations about Paul. They said he wasn't really an apostle. They said that Paul basically was was not in line with what good theology would be.

Here's the worst part. No one in the congregation really defended Paul either. And so Paul decides to write them a letter. It's not First Corinthians. It's a letter between First Corinthians and Second Corinthians. And it's scathing. He goes right to the heart.

He is rebuking them openly for what they have done. He sends the letter with Titus. And so the apostle Paul is in Ephesus when he writes it. And he's so excited. By the way, there was no texting, no email.

When you send a letter in his day, you're talking weeks, maybe months before you get a response. So Paul leaves Ephesus and goes up the coast to Troas because he knows that's where Titus will come back and tell him the response. But he gets impatient even there and heads off to Macedonia because he's not sure at all how they're going to respond.

That's where we pick it up. So look at Second Corinthians, the end of Chapter one. Verse twenty three. But I call God as the witness to my soul that the spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.

Understand what he's saying there. I had to send you a letter because if I had come, you wouldn't believe how bad it would get for you. I spared you by not coming myself. He said, not that we lord it over your faith, but our workers with you for your joy. He says, for in your faith, you're standing firm. But I determined this for my own sake, that I would not come to you in sorrow again. He said, for if I cause you sorrow, he said, who then makes me glad? But the one whom I made sorrowful. He said, this is the very thing that I wrote to you so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice.

Having confidence in you, he said, all that my joy would be the joy of all of you or of you all. He says, for out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears. He said, not that you were to be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have, especially for you. Notice he rebukes them in writing in tears. Not because not because he's judging them, because he loves them. Then in verse 12 of Chapter two, it says, Now, when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had no rest of my spirit, not finding Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them. And I went off to Macedonia. Paul must have said some things that were incredibly blunt.

To how they were living their lives. You know, sometimes you have to do that. And by the way, I don't know all of you, but I know a lot of you.

And it's my estimation, you're not good at this. You don't do this well at all. When somebody is really in sin, you're more likely to just try to encourage them along. Give them all the comfort you can. And that's it. But, you know, sometimes people need surgery instead of therapy. Sometimes you just got to go and get it out. You see, there's a tremendous difference between how I treat measles and how I treat cancer.

It's different. Paul decides he's got the scap a lot and he's going for it. So apparently he gives them extremely blunt words. Now, let's pick it up in Chapter seven, Chapter seven of Second Corinthians. His motivation is he loves them, but he also loves the truth. And he doesn't want for them what we should never want for anybody in sin.

He doesn't want them to face the consequences. You know, that's one of the great dichotomies of sin. Sin promises a lot of pleasure. But it only delivers a lot of pain.

Now, the trouble is the pain is usually delayed. And so that's why we think it's so enticing. Oh, this will be fun. You know, just think of how many times a bunch of people, young people get in a car. They get intoxicated. They're having nothing but fun.

Music's on. Radio's loud. Guy driving is intoxicated. Next thing you know, he's not sure where he is.

He crosses a line. He hits a truck head on. Then you read about it or see it on the news the next day. What are the consequences? How enormous is that? And even worse, what if he survives and the people in his car and the people in the other car die? What are the consequences of that?

They're enormous. See, sin always leaves scars. Always. That's the whole point.

That's why you rebuke it. So notice now in Second Corinthians seven, verse five, he said, For even when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. He says we were afflicted on every side.

Conflicts without fears within, he said. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus. So Titus comes. Paul is pretty happy. In fact, if you look across the verse 13 of Chapter seven, for this reason, we have been comforted. And besides our comfort, we rejoiced even much more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit had been refreshed by you all. What's Titus all happy about? They repented.

They actually repented. And so Titus is pretty happy about that. Now notice verse seven, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort. He says in which he was comforted in you as he reported to us. Your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me so that I rejoiced even more. And then he says, For though I caused you sorrow by my letter. I do not regret it, though I did regret it.

Now, that's unusual in scripture. I don't I don't regret it. I do.

I did regret it. What is he saying? Which is it? Both. You see, Paul was saying both. Paul didn't want to write the letter. I said last time, who wants to rebuke somebody in sin? Who would enjoy that except the self righteous judgmental person who's in their own sin?

No one would enjoy that. Paul didn't enjoy it. Paul said, But I can't let my emotions dictate what I have to say. Some things just have to be said. By the way, when it comes to something like that, doesn't every parent know that?

You know what that's like? You know, one of the big jokes when I was a kid, you know, was the occasional kid that whenever he got in a lot of trouble and got really disciplined. And by the way, corporal discipline was the day in my day.

It was everything. And so you'd usually see him later and you could tell he had been having a hard time. And then they would say something like this. And you know what my dad said?

He said this is going to hurt him more than hurt me. I don't think so. But I became a father and I think so.

Who enjoys that? You see, that's what Paul was saying. I didn't. He said, I don't regret that I wrote this, but I do regret it. You see, that's the idea. And he says and notice he introduces this idea of sorrow.

Hoopoe. It means anguish of the soul. Half the times it's used in the New Testament is in Second Corinthians. And half the times it's used in Second Corinthians are in these verses.

There is an obvious tie between sorrow and repentance. Now, often I've been taught that that's not the case at all because repentance is meta nueo. Nueo comes from nous. Meta nous.

Nous means mind. It means just change your mind. That's what repentance is.

It's more than that. It's inescapable in these verses. It means to change your thinking.

Yes. It means to change your feeling and change your actions, too. It means to change direction in your life.

So. He says, for though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, for I see that the letter caused you sorrow. He says, though only for a while, I now rejoice. Not that you were made sorrowful, but he said that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. That's what rebuke is. And by the way, when you rebuke somebody because of sin, they're almost always really sorrowful. They usually mask it, though, with anger and usually fight back with something like this. But sorrow is the issue. Now, notice then what he says after that.

He says. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance, for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God. So that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. This is a godly sorrow. This is the will of God. Sorrow.

This is good grief. You see, that's what he is saying. And he said, and the reason it's so good is so that you may not suffer loss. Because sin has consequences. You see, sin has consequences, and I don't want you to suffer loss in this thing. It's the same phrase he uses, by the way, when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ for all believers. Our salvation is never to be judged at the judgment seat of Christ. But all of our actions and our motivations for our actions are called wood, hay, stubble or gold, silver, precious stones. And he says, and if we do it with the wrong motivation, we will suffer loss, not salvation, but loss.

And that's what he is saying here. In other words, without repentance in your life, there's loss. You see, there's loss. And I believe there's loss of joy, loss of peace, loss of hope, loss of the abundant life that Christ talked about.

I've come to give you life and to give it to you abundantly. But if you're unrepentant, I can't help you. You see, that's what he is talking about here. He said in verse 10, For sorrow, that is, according to the will of God, produces a repentance without regret.

What a great phrase that is. I have never met a believer in Jesus Christ who found themselves in sin and then repented. And then they regretted repenting.

I don't know of a case. You see, once you repent, once you're right with God, once you get it right with others, you don't regret that. You never regret being right with God at all. He said, For sorrow, that is, according to the will of God, produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation or leading to deliverance. The word salvation can mean being saved, but being saved means being delivered. It also can be used in a normative way. And that's how I think it's used here.

Leading to deliverance, he said. But the sorrow of the world, he says, produces death. In other words, there is a sorrow that the world has. You know what I'm talking about. You see it all the time. By the way, if you ever watch somebody on the news and you find out that this person has perpetrated some great crime.

And it was horrible. And then when you see it in the paper or you see it on the news, you start realizing when the person then stands up and said, Well, I'm really sorry. What are you thinking? Yeah, they're sorry. They're sorry they got caught. That's what they're sorry about. That's a worldly sorrow.

Oh, I'm just so sorry. You see, that's not repentance. That's not repentance at all.

That's not what he is saying. Well, let me ask you this. When somebody rebukes you because of sin or in some way, when you have to make an apology for sin in your life, how do you respond?

How do you like a lot of people say the generic? I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry.

Well, isn't that all about you? You see what? I don't think that's nearly enough. Here's something even worse. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. If I hurt you, I'm sorry.

Wow. I didn't know if was on the table. You see, I mean, it's that's kind of up to you. I mean, if it didn't hurt you, then I'm not sorry. But if I did. I'm sorry I hurt you, but that was not my intention.

Now, sometimes that can happen if it's not a nondescript issue, just a miscommunication. I get it there. But if you sin. What are you saying when I'm sorry I hurt you, but it wasn't my intention? You know, I have such noble intentions.

I have these really noble. I'm a noble person with noble intentions. Now I did something horrible to you, but I have noble intentions. And you hear that all the time. Hey, I'm sorry that you got hurt.

What's that mean? Well, if you weren't so sensitive, there'd be nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry you got hurt. That's not repentance. You see, that's not repentance at all. Repentance is I'm sorry. It's totally my fault. I was completely wrong. I have no excuses.

Will you forgive me? Yeah, it sounds a lot different, doesn't it? Boy, that's hard for us. We're always trying in some way to rationalize our action. So let's go to the three questions we started with. What are the marks of a genuine or what is the mark of genuine repentance?

The simple answer is this. A changed heart. Because when your heart changes, your thoughts change, and when your heart and thoughts change, your life changes. It's a changed heart when you repent. Now, again, when we're confronted with sin, the responses we often give when it comes to a changed heart is sometimes we just go into denial.

That's what Cain did. Remember? Hey, where's your brother?

I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Well, you buried him. You ought to know where he's at. See, he just denies it. That's him.

That's Cain. I'm just denying it. Secondly, another response, evasion. Someone confronts your sin and you start evasion. That's what I call word games. You make up excuses.

By the way, this is usually the teenage mantra. Hey, I was really not even knowing they were going to do that. We were just all in the car and then they all went there and all everybody was there and I was just going along. Well, that's not new, by the way.

And if you're a parent and you buy that, you have another issue. You see, there's some kind of word game, some kind of excuses. I'm a victim.

That happens a lot in our culture. I did something terrible. We have to understand I'm a victim. I just couldn't help it. I'm just a victim of what the circumstances were. And I was victimized by the whole thing. Sometimes evasion, sometimes denial. You remember what President Clinton did?

You remember this? This is evasion. It all depends on what the meaning of the word is, is. That's what he said. Before he came to repentance, he said it all depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.

That's evasion. Third way, and this is what he talks about here, the sorrow that the world produces. Worldly regret. Worldly regret. If I could summarize it, I'm so sorry, but not sorry enough to quit.

That's worldly regret. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana, 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.