Repentance - From My Heart to Yours Part 13

Well, in his most famous sermon preached on the day of Pentecost and recorded for us in the Bible in Acts chapter 2, Peter said, verse 38, repent every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ and you shall receive forgiveness of your sins. In his next sermon in Acts chapter 3, Peter said, repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus said, I have come to call sinners to repentance. In Luke chapter 24, after his resurrection, Jesus said that in his name, repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached to all the nations beginning in Jerusalem. In fact, the Apostle Paul summed up the entire gospel message in Acts chapter 20 verse 21 by saying that we must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, but folks, look here, be careful because repentance does not stop when we become a follower of Christ.

Oh, no. Writing to believers, writing to Christians in Revelation chapter 3 verse 19, Jesus said, those whom I love, I rebuke and correct, so be earnest and what? Repent. The point is, nothing we do as human beings is more important than repentance. Not only is repentance the basis upon which God forgives people's sins and grants them eternal life, but repentance is also the basis upon which God lives in relationship with unholy people like us even after we give our lives to Christ. Can I repeat that?

Because that's important. Repentance is not only the basis upon which God forgives our sins and grants us eternal life, but repentance is also the basis upon which God lives in relationship with unholy people like us even after we've come to Christ. If everything I've said so far is right, and it is, then what that means is that every one of us here today needs to know, number one, what repentance is, and number two, how to do it. So that's what we're going to talk about today as we continue in our series from my heart to yours. Are you ready?

Are you ready? All right, here we go. We're going to start with an event out of the life of King David in 2 Samuel 12. David has done some really bad stuff, folks. He has committed adultery with Bathsheba.

He has gotten her pregnant. And then he has killed, first degree, premeditated murder her husband Uriah. And if you remember, after that, David covered this up for over a year.

And finally, God said that's enough. And he sends the prophet Nathan to see David. And Nathan tells David a story about a man, a rich man who had lots of sheep. But when a guest came and they wanted to prepare a banquet, instead of using one of his sheep, he went and took the only sheep that a poor man owned and killed and prepared that sheep. And David was incensed at what the rich man had done. And then Nathan turned to David and said, gosh, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in this conversation, turns to David and says, David, you are the man. You had all these wives and you could have had more wives if you wanted them.

But no, you had to take Uriah's only wife because you weren't satisfied with all the wives you had. And David is suddenly faced, my friends, with a choice. Either he can keep going the way he's been going, justifying his sinful behavior, lying, deceiving, covering up, or he can make a U-turn. He can come clean. He can fess up. He can come out of the shadows and into the light and allow God to restore him and forgive him.

What did he do? Verse 13, then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. He chose to repent.

He chose to make a U-turn. And look at God's immediate response. And Nathan said to David, the Lord has forgiven your sin. You shall not die. Man, how beautiful is this, huh?

How wonderful is this? God's forgiveness was as immediate as David's repentance. Do you see that? No passing go.

No collecting $200. But isn't that exactly what the Bible says? We read it. Acts chapter 2 verse 38. Peter said, repent and you, what's the next word? Shall receive forgiveness of your sins. Listen, God doesn't forgive our sins because we go to church. He doesn't forgive our sins because we sing in the choir. He doesn't forgive our sins because we put money in the offering plate or because we teach Sunday school or because we get baptized or because we work hard at the office or because we try to keep the Ten Commandments or because we try to drive the speed limit on the beltway. That is not why God forgives sin. God forgives our sin on one basis and one basis only.

Paul said it. Acts 20 verse 21. Repentance is the basis and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now if you're here and you've never repented and put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did for you on the cross as your one and only hope of heaven and eternal life and forgiveness of sins, then folks I want to say to you that with all due respect you're in big trouble because there is no other way to get into heaven. There is no other way to have your sins forgiven and have eternal life.

Nothing else you're trying is going to work. And I want to urge you today to give up all of those broken down and bankrupt remedies that you're trying and I want to urge you today to try the one key that will really open the door to heaven and eternal life and that is repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross to pay for your sin. And you say, Lon can I do it right here today? Oh you sure can. You say, yeah but I don't even know what I'm supposed to do.

I don't even know what repentance is. Ah, not to worry because I'm about to tell you. But before I tell you, we got to ask a question.

You know what our question is, don't you? Uh-huh, you know? Yeah, okay, alright. Here we go, come on, nice and loud.

One, two, three. So what? Yeah, so what?

Well I'm going to tell you so what. You know there's a bumper sticker that I see around here and there and it's one of my favorite bumper stickers. It says this, it says going the wrong way, question mark, God allows U-turns. And I love that bumper sticker because that's the whole message of the Bible right there. Folks, this is what repentance is.

It is a U-turn. It is an about face in those places where our heart and our lives are out of step with God. It is an about face in those places where we are out of step with God in our heart, in our behavior or in both. And you know this is what the Greek word translated repentance in the New Testament really means.

It's the Greek word metanoeo and it literally means to change your mind, to change your direction, to change your way of living. So when a person changes their mind about how they plan to get into heaven and they decide to trust what Jesus did on the cross for them instead of their own good works, which would have never gotten them into heaven anyway, this is salvation repentance. And when a person changes their mind about how they're living as a follower of Christ and they decide to live the way the Bible says instead of the way they feel like living, this is Christian life repentance. But whether it's salvation repentance or whether it's Christian life repentance, we do it the exact same way. There are four steps to how we repent and I'm going to tell you what they are.

So here we go. Step number one to biblical repentance means that we must admit that we are going in the wrong direction. Look at what David said, Psalm 32 verse 5. He said, I acknowledged my sin to thee and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will admit my transgressions to the Lord. Look at those words.

David said, acknowledged. I do not hide. I admit this is the biggest and the hardest step of all my friends because nobody likes to admit that they're wrong. And of course, the issue is our pride.

And you've seen this. People will cling to their pride right down to the last gasp into the gutter. They will cling to their pride into utter self destruction.

They will cling to their pride. But, folks, this is the place where repentance has to start with a humble, broken admission that we are out of step with God in all or part of our life and that it's costing us the blessing of God and that it's costing us a healthy life. This is where we start. You know, when I was at the University of North Carolina, let me show you a picture of what I looked like when I was back there. That's me. Yeah. How about that? And all that hair is mine just like this is right here. Yeah.

Okay. Now, when I was there at Chapel Hill, folks, I have to tell you, I knew I was self-destructing. I mean, I knew that I was headed for utter disaster in my personal life, but I had no idea why.

And it was when I ran into Bob Eckhart, the street preacher down in Chapel Hill, and he gave me a Bible and began challenging me to read the Bible that I first began to understand why. I began to understand why I was self-destructing. See, knowing that we're self-destructing is not good enough. Repentance means that we have to understand why we're self-destructing.

We have to understand that it's because we're in disobedience to God. And then we have to be willing to humble ourselves and admit this. We have to admit it to ourselves.

We have to admit it to our friends. And we have to admit it to Almighty God. This is step number one in repentance.

Number two. Step number two to biblical repentance is we have to come clean about our sin. 2 Samuel, David said to Nathan, he said, I have sinned against the Lord.

Writing about that in Psalm 51, David said, verse four, against thee and thee only I have sinned, Lord, and done what is evil in your sight. Wow. Now here's a guy who's making no excuses.

I love it. Here's a guy who's saying it's my fault. It's all my fault. It's not society's fault. It's not my parents' fault. It's not my friends' fault. It's not my spouse's fault. It's not the boss' fault. It's not the teacher's fault. No one is responsible but me. And you know so many people, you meet them.

I meet them. Always have a quiver full of excuses, a fancy explanation for this and a fancy explanation for that. But the bottom line is it's always somebody else's fault. Well, let me just tell you that biblical repentance doesn't do this. And that's why so few people repent because it is a bloody process. That demands the courage to be brutally honest with ourselves about our mistakes, about our sins, about our character flaws. If a person wants to pamper, protect and spare themselves, my friends, they are not yet a candidate for biblical repentance. If a person wants to save face at all costs, they are not yet a candidate for biblical repentance.

You've got to come clean with everybody. Number three, third step to biblical repentance is that we have to be willing to accept whatever consequences for our sin that God deems appropriate. Here David said, Psalm 51, we read part of it. Verse four, against thee and thee only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Now watch, so that David says, you are right, Lord, in your sentence against me and you are justified in your judgment against me. What exactly was God's sentence against David's sin? What was his judgment against David's sin? Well, in 2 Samuel 12, Nathan said, the Lord has forgiven your sin, you shall not die.

Nevertheless, because by this deed, your adultery, your murder of her husband, you have given opportunity for the enemies of the Lord to scorn him. Do you understand what Nathan is saying, that the surrounding peoples and the surrounding kings will look suddenly at the God of Israel and say, a holy God? A holy God, right. What kind of holy God have they got that his representative here on earth commits adultery and then murders her husband premeditatedly? We pagans don't even do stuff like that. And this is what the holy God of the universe's king does? What kind of holy God is that? Do you understand what Nathan is saying?

You got it? Because you've given people the opportunity to do that. Therefore, he says, the child that is born to you and Bathsheba shall surely die. Now, this child was already born. By this time, the child that Bathsheba had born to David was about a year old, was a toddler, was walking and running around and learning to speak. But in keeping with God's word, David and Bathsheba's child became gravely ill. And if we read the Bible, David prayed over this child.

He fasted for this child's life. But when the child died, as God said he would, David didn't scream. David didn't curse.

David didn't throw dishes. David realized that the child's death was in direct consequence for his sin. He accepted it. He submitted himself to God's consequences. Because, folks, this is what a person who's gripped by biblical repentance does. They understand they're guilty. They understand what they did. And they give God the freedom to determine whatever the consequences shall be. Now, you know, in his mercy, and I want to be sure and say this, in his mercy, God often softens, he often mitigates some of the personal consequences of our sin.

Oh, my gosh. When I came to Christ, if God had pressed every consequence for sin of my sin on me, I'd still be in federal penitentiary today for all the drugs that we smuggled and sold. And who knows what else would be wrong with me. All the LSD I dropped. I'd be thinking I was an orange.

Somebody was going to peel me and I'd be hiding under the bed today. I'm serious. God mitigates our personal consequences often.

But listen here. There's one consequence for our sins that God never ever mitigates. That is, he makes us go back and make things right with the people that we hurt. He makes us go back and he makes us confess our sin to the people that we hurt. He makes us go back and ask for forgiveness from the people that we hurt. And he makes us go back and do everything we can to make things right with the people that we hurt.

He may mitigate other consequences of our sin, but never that one. You know, you've heard me tell you before that when I was in Chapel Hill, I had a girlfriend. And for four years we were together, we lived together in Chapel Hill. Then she moved up here to Alexandria to teach school and we would, she traveled back and forth and whatever. But during the four years that we were together, I, without her knowledge, probably slept with somewhere between, I would say 20, I don't have an exact count, 20 into 30 other women.

She didn't know about it. You say, what? What were you, an animal? What were you, a beast? What were you, a reptile?

Yep, pretty much, reptile I think fits. That's what I was. Well, then I came to Christ and then God convicted me that I had to go back and make this right with her. You say, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. What are you, out of your mind? You don't go back and tell people stuff like that.

Are you crazy? She didn't know about it. More hurt her. Listen, sorry. I tried that argument with God, didn't work. You know why? Because folks, the Holy Spirit was driving me unrelentingly to go back and make this right with her, to confess it, to ask for forgiveness because I couldn't get out of it. And you know why I couldn't get out of it? Because this was part of repentance. This was part of the consequence of my sin.

And it was a part that God was not letting me out of and he said, if you mean business, this is what you have to do. And it was ugly. Oh my gosh, friends, it was the ugliest.

I can't even tell you how ugly this turned out to be. But I had no choice. And I accepted it as a consequence of my sin.

And that relationship blew up like a bomb. You say, well, I guess so. Well, consequence of my sin. Was I angry? Was I mad at God?

No. I was just glad that the consequences of my sin weren't worse than they were in those days. Look, if you really repent, whatever God chooses to leave on you for your consequences of what you've done, you will accept it and you will declare that God is righteous and just in what he's done.

Number four. And finally, the last step in biblical repentance is that we must commit ourselves by God's help and power to genuine life change, to genuine behavior change. John the Baptist said to all these people who were coming to him to repent, he said, bring forth fruit. Bring forth actions in keeping with repentance. What John's saying here is that biblical repentance always produces changed behavior.

Let me repeat that. Biblical repentance always produces changed behavior and actions. That's how we tell it apart from what the Bible calls the sorrow of the world. The sorrow of the world is I'm sorry I got caught. The sorrow of the world is I'm sorry I have to pay the price for this. And listen to the Bible distinguish these two.

2 Corinthians 7, 10. The Bible says the kind of sorrow God wants makes people change their hearts and their lives. This leads to salvation and you cannot be sorry for that but the kind of sorrow the world has only brings death. There's nothing transformational about the sorrow of the world. There's nothing redemptive about the sorrow of the world.

I got caught, I wish I didn't. That doesn't redeem anything, no, no. Biblical repentance happens in our life and people can tell it's happening in our life because they see change. They see us making amends with the people we've hurt. They see us fixing the things that are ungodly and wrong in our life and they see us pursuing obedience to God in every part of our being. How we speak, how we think, how we act, how we treat people, how we forgive other people, where our eyes go, where our minds go, where our computer goes. And no matter how you slice it my friend, listen to me, a person cannot practice true biblical repentance unless, listen, they deliberately decide that they are gonna turn away from their sinful behavior and by prayer and by reliance on the Holy Spirit's power, they are gonna pursue hard after obeying God.

That's got to be said again. True repentance cannot happen unless you and I deliberately decide, listen to me, that we are going to turn away from sinful behavior and by prayer and by trusting the Spirit's power, we are going to pursue hard after obeying God. Now, this doesn't mean we always get it right. It doesn't mean we sometimes don't let God down every single day and disobey God and fail, no. But friends, it means that every single day we are pursuing hard after obeying God.

Every day we get up and start new and say, oh God, help me to obey you today in every part of my life. This is the missing ingredient in so much repentance because this is what brings it to critical mass. Without this commitment to turning away from sin and turning towards God and seeking hard to obey God, folks, repentance never reaches critical mass in the sight of God. And that's why people who tell you, I'm so sorry, I wish I didn't do this, you know, I feel bad about it, you know, and then they never do change anything. Folks, I'm sorry, that is not biblical repentance.

It's not right, it's not the true thing. So can we summarize? Four steps to how we repent. Number one, we admit we're going in the wrong direction. Number two, we come clean about our sin. Number three, we're willing to accept whatever consequences for our sin, God deems appropriate. And number four, we commit ourselves to genuine life change by God's power and assistance. And listen, I got good news for you.

You say, well, it's about time. Listen, I got great news for you. Whether you're a lost sinner coming to Christ for the very first time, or whether you're a saved sinner coming to Christ for the 1,001st time to repent, when we truly repent, God's response to us is always the same as it was to David. What did God say to him? The Lord has forgiven your sin. Praise God for that, huh? Praise the Lord.

Now let's bow our heads and close our eyes, shall we? With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I wanna call on every one of us here today in a moment to come forward at whatever campus you're at and to join me here or your campus pastor there in repenting before the Lord. Now, of course, I want you to come forward if you're repenting and coming to Christ for the very first time.

But I also want you to come forward as believers and repent. And you know, the Bible says as Christians, there are two kinds of sins that we do. 1 Timothy 5, 24. The first kind, the Bible says, are quite evident these sins are going ahead of us. These are things that are so visible outwardly, cursing, drugs, lewd comments, adultery, pornography. But the Bible also says that there's another category of sins you and I do as Christians.

1 Timothy 5 calls it others that follow after us. These are the sins that may not be as visible. Listen to me, but they are far more deadly and defiling. Like judging other people harshly in our minds. You say, yeah, I do that. Like envy and jealousy of people getting ahead of us. Yeah, I do that, you say. Like unforgiveness and bitterness.

Say, yeah, Lon, I do that one too. And anger and malice and ill will towards people. You say, yeah, yep, guilty is charged there too. Arrogance, oh, that's my big one. Self-sufficiency, selfishness, terrible at that. Maybe you are too, like prayerlessness and spiritual laziness and coldness of heart towards Jesus. I'm guilty of those too, maybe you are. Folks, these are the sins people don't see, but they're more deadly. And we need to repent of these and say, oh, Jesus, with your help, I'm coming clean about this stuff in my life.

And you and I, we're gonna seek, we're gonna pursue hard to change this stuff. So I'm coming down now onto the floor, and I'm getting on my knees, because I need to repent. I repented before I came out here to preach, but I've done enough in the last half hour, I need to repent again.

I'm bad, so are you. You come down and join me, I hope. Remember, revival begins with repentance.

If we wanna see God fall on our toes, if we wanna see God fall on our church and our lives and our country, it's not gonna happen till we repent. But don't you come for that reason. You come because you need it. I'll see you down here. Come join me. Come join me. Come on, folks, just fill the aisles. That's why they're there. Now, this is great, but there's more, there's a few more of you that need to come. Don't you let your pride stop you.

That's how you got in this mess to start with. Come on down and join us, folks. There's forgiveness waiting down here on our knees.

God bless you. Lord Jesus, here we are on our knees in front of you, repenting of our sins to the best of our ability, O God. And Lord, I want to confess my sins to you.

My sins of speaking ill of people and just being so nasty in some of the things that I say. Can anybody say amen to that? More of you can say amen than that.

Come on. Amen. And Lord, the judgments I pass on people are so harsh when I do some of the same things. Can anybody say amen to that? Amen.

And oh God, my self-sufficiency and my selfishness and my arrogance, oh God, it causes me to think I can do it on my own. Can I get an amen to that? Amen. And oh Jesus, the ill will I bear people sometimes, the unforgiving heart that I've got, the secret malice that I wish on others, amen. Oh dear Jesus, and my coldness of heart towards you. So many times I wake up, I don't want to pray, I don't want to read the Bible, I just want to go my own way.

Amen to that? Jesus, I confess to you that I am corrupt to the core. The apostle Paul said that in my flesh lieth no good thing. But Lord, he went on to say, who shall deliver me, oh wretched man, that I am from this body of death? Praise God, he said, that Jesus will deliver me, for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ.

One day we're getting new bodies, we know Christ, that aren't like this. Jesus, we rejoice in the victory that you've won. But in the meantime, we need you so much, Lord, every day, God, shall we need you. The more aware of our sin we become, the more we realize how much we need you. Thank you for your mercy to us, Lord. Forgive us today for our sins, in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said, amen. Amen. Amen.