What is Repentence with Pastor Jeff

Bible Repentance Versus Internet Definitions

Sorry, got squirrely. But check this question out. This is obviously from a young girl or a young lady, I should say, because she actually writes, well, okay. What's your question? Well, okay. And she spelled before B-E-F -4.

So it's definitely of a younger generation. But anyways, here's her question. Are you ready? Well, okay. So explain the difference between Bible repentance and internet Bible definition. What's the difference from Bible in hand versus Bible on a screen?

I'm confused. Well, I don't blame you for your confusion. Because dang, I looked up, when I got this question, I actually typed in biblical repentance. And I got a host of wrong answers. I'm going to ask you men to turn this up just for a little bit, because old pastor's deaf.

I got a bunch of different suggestions. I got a bunch of different definitions. And it's hilarious. Most of them did not quote scripture in defining what biblical repentance is. I thought that was absolutely hilarious.

Repentance as the Difference Between Eternal Life and Eternal Death

So what is repentance? Guys, what is it? What does that mean? I tell you this. The answer is so important. It's the difference between eternal life and eternal death. I promise you that. It's not a joke.

It's not something that we play with or you should play with. You should have an absolute understanding of what repentance really is. Read with me Joel chapter 2 verses 12 and 13. Joel chapter 2 verses 12 and 13.

It says this. Even now, this is the Lord's declaration. Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and He relents from sending disaster.

Let's pray this morning. God, in the name of Jesus, Lord, I ask You, I beg You, Father, awaken the hearts of people here today. God, may we not seek a religious, moral, or ethical change, but God, may we truly turn from our sin and turn towards You, every one of us.

God, may God's people in this nation turn towards You. And God, may we know the hope and peace that comes with that repentance. Lord, we love You and we thank You. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.

So in comparing and contrasting, if you look there in Joel chapter 2, it actually says, tear your hearts, not just your clothes. So there is a comparison and a contrast between fake repentance and real repentance.

Why Webster's Definition Leaves God Out

First of all, look at what Webster's Dictionary, I wrote it out for you on your sheet, look what Webster's Dictionary defines repentance as. It says, to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that definition? Where's God in that? And you'll use the word sin, but they will leave God out of it. I'll go you a step further. You know, today, I have no problem starting a conversation, whenever I'm out, whether I'm in Sam's or Walmart or whatever, I enjoy talking to people about the Lord.

And I usually use some ambush tactics. Like when I get on an elevator or something, or I'm walking and I meet someone, I go, hey man, what's up? How are you? And they go, I'm fine, how are you? Oh man, let me tell you how I am.

And then they're almost indebted to sit there and listen to you. And I know it's an awkward thing, but man, there's so many people going to hell, and whatever I'm doing at the time is just not that important compared to that.

I start asking them, and I'll start talking to them about God. And it's amazing. The awkward level is about here. It is. But when you mention the name of Jesus, that awkward level ratchets up about that much.

But when I start talking about, unless you repent of your sins, man, that awkward levelness reaches up to here. You see, we're growing up in a culture. Remember, there's only one race of people. But there is a culture in the United States of America.

In preachers and in churches all across the land today, people will hear this, smile, God loves you. God loves you just the way you are. God will love you and accept you all right now just the way you are.

Well, if God will accept you just the way you are, why did His Son have to bear the stripes and the crucifixion of a lost and dying world? God does not accept you the way you are. There has to be a payment for your sin.

And let me tell you something. Someone's going to pick up the tab for your sin. It can be you or Jesus Christ, but someone is going to pay for it. What is biblical repentance? Well, first of all, it is not something that is just simply a reformation of the outside.

Fake Repentance, Guilt, and the Need for Conviction

Here's another one. Church people, y 'all better listen to me on this. Church people, I ain't talking about Christians. I'm talking about church people, which is most of the people in churches this morning.

At any given church, probably only 20 -30 of the people sitting in the pews are actually saved. Hear me on that. Hear me on that. Here's how most people look at repentance. It is, I feel guilty. God is not a codependent grandma or mother trying to guilt you or persuade you into doing something.

God has a standard that has not changed since the dawn of time. And that standard is absolute perfection. If you're in this room today and your wife said, Please come to church. Oh, please come to church.

And you went, fine, whatever. Just shut up. Quit guilting me. Right? I see Bruno laughing pretty hard over there. Quit guilting me into coming to church. And you relent. And you came here today to shut your wife up.

But you also came here today to make yourself feel a little better. I'm not that bad of a parent. I'm not that bad of a person. Yeah, I believe in God. You have a jacked up idea about what repentance really is.

You're in this room today for you. You're in this room today to cause a cessation in your hearts of guiltiness or nagging. Guys, that is not true repentance. There are church people in this room today that have heard the gospel message for years and have never truly repented of their sins.

You want a moral or ethical change in your life? You want the outside to look good, but the inside is still full of dead men's bones. And what's even scarier than that is not only will you pass on that hedonistic apostate way of living a sanctified Christian life to your children, you're going to end up slipping off into the abyss in hell.

Now I know that does not make people feel good. I know that's not a way to fill a room. But my job isn't to fill your room. My job isn't to fill your heart. My job is to tell you the truth of God's word on when it comes to repentance and let the Holy Spirit change your heart.

I ain't never led anybody to Jesus. That's not my job. I can't do that. Only the Holy Spirit of God does that. And if you're in this room today and I'm talking about church people, and right now in your heart it's doing that, you got two choices.

You can listen to the Holy Spirit of God or you can walk out of here the same way you walked in and still your journey will be on that road paved to hell. Well, Brother Jeff, that don't make me feel good.

Well, that's called conviction. The next step of conviction, you ready for it, is repentance. Fake repentance, guys. Maybe some of y 'all have done it. Here is some key factors. Here's some key characteristics of fake repentance.

Watch. See if any of these apply to you. Number one, and write them down if you want to. Number one, there's no remorse. There's no remorse. Do you understand what I mean by that? I'm going to use the F word.

Are you ready? Look at all y 'all heads pop up. Everybody quit playing on the phone when I said that, right? You don't feel remorse. Have you ever felt bad for something? Guys, there are still times in my life right now where I think about things I've done in the past and I go, God, what was I thinking?

You know? That's not really what I'm talking about. See, read with me and I wrote it on your pieces of paper for you. 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 9 and 10. Read it with me. It says, I now rejoice. Paul is writing the church at Corinth.

He says, I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. You see, your remorse and grief, if it's just remorse and grief, it's fake. It's not real. Conviction of God, the difference between guilt and conviction, is conviction will always move you towards God.

Remorse and guilt will cause you to lose your mind. It will cause you to feel guilty. It will cause you anxiety. It will cause you depression. It will cause you bitterness. It will cause you anger. But it will never, ever, ever lead to godly repentance.

But you don't even feel that. Have you done a sin so long that it's become numb? Guys, that is the scariest place you can be. Scary. Because you have no accountability on the outside. Because you're one of them church people that says, my private life between me and God is private and ain't nobody gonna judge me.

You're the same person, whenever someone calls you out on the carpet, you're the first idiot in the room to go, judge not, lest ye be judged. And I always ask them, where's that scripture? In the Bible.

You know, it never says that anywhere. Nowhere. Oh, I know, some of y 'all are scrambling. I'll save you some time, Matthew 7. But, listen, it doesn't say, judge not, lest ye be judged. It says a whole chapter on that.

And you gotta read the whole thing. In fact, God tells us to judge one another. In all of scripture. It says to judge one another. What it's saying is, you, if you're going to judge someone else, you make sure that you're not living in that same sin secretly before you judge somebody else.

That's like the blind leading the blind. Okay? Guys, if you don't understand that remorse, if you don't have that remorse, if there's been no change in your life, Listen, if you say, I want forgiveness, but I want to keep living this sin out, and there's no change in your life, come here, let me let you in on a secret that we already all know, you have not repented.

And maybe no one's ever told you this in your life, because they were afraid to hurt your feelings. I would rather have your feelings hurt, and know the glory of heaven awaiting, than know no good feelings and have hell licking at your feet.

Where are you this morning? Here's another characteristic of people that won't repent. They will build camps for themselves. Man, if you ever become a pastor, now, we enjoy here a massive unity. You know how there's like church drama, but we hadn't had that in like ten years.

Right? We're very unified. But let me tell you something. If you are one of those people that live in sin, you will find people to live in sin and validate with you. Let me talk about one of the most heinous sins in the church today.

You ready? Homosexuality. Hey, y 'all know what I'm talking about? Them gay peoples? You know what I mean? Them fruits? You know, it's horrible. Because God says it. There are seven sins I hate. Wait a minute.

Homosexuality in there. Huh. Oh, I'm sorry. Another sermon. Hold on. Hold on. Let me go back to scripture. Oh, gossip. You know that God talks about gossip a lot more than He talks about being queer? I'm sorry, that wasn't politically correct.

Different sexual orientation. How many of y 'all have ever gossiped? Man, some of you Christians in here that never raise your hands and never repent of your sin, will you just come up here and be the pastor?

Because God, I want to be like you. You walked down the aisle in 1967 and gave your heart to Jesus Christ and prayed Him in your eyes, and you've never had to repent again. You lying, arrogant, stiff-necked, unrepentant, godless, heathen.

You need to repent your butt today. Today. Because here's what's happening. Your unrepentant heart is destroying generation after generation of Christian. You'll sit in a pew and talk about how damnable the world really is, but you will not confess in your own heart, and then with shocked unbelief, you'll wonder why your kids rebelled against the hypocrisy that they've seen lived out in your life.

And then guess what you'll do? You'll still never repent. And you'll actually get other people to go, well, there's nothing you could have done. It's not your fault. They shouldn't have done this. It's the drug's fault.

Oh, the drug's in America. Oh, President Obama, if he hadn't been president, your child never would have fallen away from Jesus. Oh, it's the school teacher's fault. It's the school's fault. It's the world's fault.

It's Guns and Roses, or I don't know what music's today, but it's Metallica's fault. I'm sorry. It's someone else's fault. Fake repentance, you will start finding people to agree with you, to suppress the conviction of the Holy Spirit that is banging on your heart right now.

Right now. And you're doing it in your mind right now. See, it's not fake. It's real. It is the most important thing you can deal with. Last thing on fake repentance. Look at this. Make me feel better.

Has this ever been you? And you wish you could cry? Because you need a release from the sin that is raping your soul? You need that. And you will listen to me. You will listen to Christian songs and Christian sermons to feel a level of repentance.

You need it so bad in your spiritual life right now. Guys, that's not repentance. Those are feelings. See, repentance is turning from your sin and turning to God. It's not just about a moral change or an ethical change.

Unless you stop doing this sin and then turn to God with all of your heart, you've never repented. You're looking for a release from guilts and feelings rather than wanting and loving the holiness of God.

True Repentance as Turning to God From the Inside Out

How bad, Christian? Do you want to know how you can measure your holiness? How much do you hate sin? We've been taught a whole lot. Well, those of you that grew up in church, you should never hate. That's not what Scripture says.

Scripture says you should hate sin. You want to measure your holiness? Quit measuring it on your tithing, your choir attendance, your church attendance, and your Sunday school attendance. Measure it by the real litmus test Scripture gave us.

How much do you detest and hate your sin? Because when you hate it, the only other thing that will fill your heart is God's glory and God's holiness. And you will turn away from your sin because it's disgusting to you.

It's like mayonnaise. Okay, I forgot. I'm in a room full of unregenerated people. That camel snot horse froth, okay? That mayonnaise. You know, I have a deacon who actually squirts mayonnaise on a plate and dips his french fries in it.

You people are going to hell. Oh my God, y 'all are sick twists. Anyways, turning away from sin and turning... And here's, listen, listen. Here's what some of you are saying right now. Brother Jeff, man, you had him in your hand.

You just cracked that joke and you let the tension be released. Come here. I'm not a salesman. I'm not Barnum and Bailey's circus. If you make a decision based upon the emotional stead of your brain and the religious service of a stupid church, it's going to last as long as you walk out that door.

I'm not here for your emotions. I'm here to preach the word of God. What you do with it is between you and God. All right? Now, what's real repentance? I got five minutes. We can do this. You ready? Watch this.

Even now this is the Lord's decoration. Turn to me with all of your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just to close, and return to the Lord your God. First of all, I want you to know what real repentance is.

Call now. Right now. I mean, if you call right now, I will give you grace. Let me rephrase that. God's saying, I will give you one plus grace to every sin you can buy. For the price of one, I'll give you two.

Here's the thing, guys. In today's mentality, some of you sitting in the room, you really want to repent. You're not stiff-necked. You're not hard-hearted. God is pounding on you right now, and you're saying to yourself, I really want to do right.

But here's the back of your mind. But I know if I do that today, I'm going to fail tomorrow. I don't want to be a... You already are, man. Do you know how stupid that is? I want to repent, but I love weed too much.

And I know that... Big cloud. I know that God will be madder at me if I fake repent today, and I just go back to it tomorrow. I know this is part of your problem, that the entire universe revolves around you and your feelings.

That's why you don't have peace in your life. But come here. In Joel chapter 2, it says, even now. You know why it says that? Because for two generations, the people of God had looked to God and gone, we're going to do what we want to do, how we want to do it, and God spanked them.

And then they came back to God. And then you know what they did? They left Him again. And then God corrected them and they came back. And then they left again and again. And this cycle of sin and repentance kept going on and on and on.

And you know what the Word of God says? Even now I'll take you back. You see, that's grace, guys. I don't care where you've gone. I don't care what you've done. God's grace is ready right now. You don't have to get cleaned up to understand God's grace.

You don't have to take a bath before you get in the shower. You can know the grace of God right now through nothing more than repentance. That's it. Call now. Brother Jeff, I'm afraid I'm going to fail.

Stop being a perfectionist and realize that the sanctified Christian life looks just like a cycle of failure and repentance. Because that's called life. That's how you get stronger. That's how you mature in Jesus.

It's amazing to me that the church has actually created a model that once you get saved, a mature Christian no longer sins. You have lost your minds! There are no super-Christians in this room that does not need to be at this altar or on your feet with your heart towards God.

Well, except me. Because I'm the licensed, ordained, senior pastor of God. The street-walking whore out there and Adrian Rogers were on the same level of total depravity. And the same grace that can save me is the same grace that can save her.

Understand today that true repentance is a call right now. But look at this other thing. You need to realize or recognize that call is on your life. But let's talk real quick about the reformation that repentance brings.

The Heart, the Outside, and the Grace of God

Look what it says in Joel 2. It says, Tear your hearts, not just your clothes. What does that mean? Well, I actually was going to wear an old shirt and tear it, but I was afraid with my deacons here, I would incite them to have lustful thoughts.

So, I didn't do that. Actually, I sold all my old shirts in a garage sale. But anyways, in the Old Testament, in that culture, only one race, please don't say race. Guys, do me a favor about this racism stuff.

Stop, please. It's just the height of stupid. And when you argue with people about it, you get frustrated. Right? Because they really are that stupid. Let's talk about Jesus. Okay? Because Jesus can fix stupid.

We can't. Alright? Reformation. It says, Tear your hearts, not just your clothes. In that culture, when you were sad, or you wanted to demonstrate, think about tearing your clothes like walking down the aisle.

Okay? Same thing. Tearing your clothes back then, they would rip their clothes and they would throw ash on themselves or dirt to show the humility and the pain that they felt. We still do the same thing.

We just do it in different ways. Right? Now, God's not saying walking down the aisle or tearing your clothes is bad. What He's saying is, your heart should precede the outside. The inside should precede the outside.

Guys, listen to me for a second. Biblical repentance is this. God knocking on your soul. Your soul telling your brain something's going to have to change. Your brain telling your body that something's got to change.

Here's your body right here. Your body is controlled by your brain. Your mind. And church people, listen to me. Please stop saying that sadness and happiness are your soul. They're not. They're chemical things that go on in your little brain.

Okay? That's just science. Alright? But peace and joy and conviction, those aren't in your brain. That's in your soul. Alright? So here's your body. Your brain has control of your body. And a mature Christian, their soul controls their brain.

Okay? But the problem is, when you're not a Christian, your soul is dead. Ephesians chapter 2. It's dead. Right? All you've got is your mind and your body. And that is a really bad way to go through life.

Because you will be only as good as you feel that day. You will never know what joy is. The power of joy is this. No matter how I feel, I can still say rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice.

You'll always be susceptible to how you feel. Or how you see yourself. Or how someone else sees you. But see, true repentance, it starts from the inside and it moves outward. Church people, here's where we've really messed up.

We have told people for centuries, we've told them, hey, don't have tattoos. Don't cuss. Don't smoke. Don't drink. And you can be a part of us. Have that little lilt song in your voice in the Southern Baptist Church.

Say God bless you. And my goodness, God love you. Just act a certain way. And we don't really care what the inside's like. Well, that's why we don't partner with the Southern Baptist Convention no more.

Or any other stupid religion. I want to partner with Scripture. I don't care what you look like on the outside. I don't care what you look like. I mean, we take everything in here. Right? We have trolls in here.

I'm sorry. I went over to Mercedes' house the other day. It's right there at the overpass of I -40 and Wynton Road. She lives right up under the bridge. Guys, I don't care what your outside looks like.

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care what sin you're struggling with. I want to help you find the peace. And the peace is not going to be regenerating from the outside in. Alcoholics know this. Drug addicts know this.

If you try to go from the outside in and you don't change your heart and your mind first, guess what you're going to be doing tomorrow? If you don't believe me, go ask that burnout drug addict hippie in the back.

Bill will tell you. Guys, listen to me. What true repentance is is submitting to God first and then letting God help you with the outside. And one of the tools that God uses to help the outside are Christians.

If you're one of them people that you don't want people knowing your business, you are destined to stumble and fall. Word go. Word go. Last thing and I'm done. Read the full description. Chapter 2, verse 13.

Tell your hearts and not just to close and return to the Lord your God. Now watch this. For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and relents from sending disaster.

You know there's a middle ground to truth? There really is. And it's funny that we actually have to have polarized extremes to actually want to see truth again. In this nation, we don't want truth anymore.

We want the hyperbole of polarization. We want our position to be that just what we're against. Sorry, sermon for another time. It's so sad. You got one side saying, God doesn't want to harm you. Guys, that's not really biblical.

Listen to me. God doesn't want to hurt you to hurt you. God wants you to be in right stead with him. And sometimes that might mean kicking your butt. It says he relents from sending disaster. I remember a church member actually asking me this when I was pastoring in Nashville.

A lady got cancer and she actually came up to me and said, Pastor, we need to pray for that woman's soul that she'll repent. That's stupid. That's cause and effect. We live in a fallen world. That's cause and effect.

When God says sending disaster, what he's talking about is God's grace can actually offset the effects of the causality of our sin. In other words, our sin demands that we go straight to hell in a handbasket.

That disaster is the destiny of all mankind except for the grace of almighty God. You see this morning, if you want to know what true repentance is, you will never understand true repentance. You'll never understand the beauty of God's love and grace until you understand the absolute disgust of your own sin.

If you can look at your life and say, I'm not that bad, you are never going to understand God's grace. You might get a church understanding, but you'll never get a biblical one. Who in this room does not need to repent?

And I'm going to ask you, what are you going to do in the next 10 minutes?