All Things For Good: Chap. 6 Pt. 3

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All Things For Good: Chap. 6 Pt. 4

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Going through the book, All Things for Good, a couple weeks ago we started Chapter 6, and it was an exhortation to love

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God. And so, Thomas Watson is reminding us, what the scriptures remind us, that we ought to be lovers of God, and recognizing that we're fleshly, and we sometimes fail to, oftentimes fail to love

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God as we ought to. He has given us 20 motivations to love

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God. And so we've actually gone through five of them, we have a lot more to get through in this chapter, but we've been having some good discussions, so today we'll start on number six, and we'll read that together, and then, well,

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I'll read it to you, and then we'll talk about it. Number six, God desires our love.

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We have lost our beauty and stained our blood, yet the King of heaven is a suitor to us.

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What is there in our love that God should seek it? What is God the better for our love?

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He does not need it, he is infinitely blessed in himself. If we deny him our love, he has more sublime creatures who pay the cheerful tribute of love to him.

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God does not need our love, yet he seeks it. So, this is a motivation to love

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God, that he desires our love. As you ponder that for a moment,

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I have Hosea 6 .6 here, I don't know, sometimes

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I write my notes and then I forget where I, but here, because he'll give us tons of scripture for most of these, but this is the scripture that came to mind somehow.

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For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. The knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings, and this is

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God speaking to the people through Hosea. So, when we consider, you know what he says here, we have lost our beauty and stained our blood, and yet the

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King of heaven is a suitor to us. What impact or motivation does it have on us when we consider the fact that we are corrupt, we are selfish, and yet the

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Lord pursues us. He draws us to himself and continues to desire our love, as flawed as it is.

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How often do we think about that? Thoughts? There's coffee in the back.

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It's not Sunday morning, it's like, no, it's Wednesday evening, it's hump day, come on.

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Here he's desiring to motivate us and he's reminding us that God desires our love, and he doesn't mince words.

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We're not worthy of his love that he would desire it, and our love is flawed, and yet he still calls us to it.

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Erica, I knew I could count on you. They want to punish

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God, like they'll do something out of anger. I think even somebody who says that they're atheist, but really is more agnostic, like they believe in God, they're like, because he did this, like this horrible, you know, offendant,

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I just think about how when it says that God desires our love, is that specifically talking about his people, the ones that...

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Yeah, yeah, I mean here in Hosea, you know, remember another prophet going to the people, and the prophets were these, you know, they were covenant prosecutors, and so the large majority of them were sent to his people specifically.

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There were times where they were sent to others, outsiders, you know, we think of Jonah going to Nineveh, but for the most part he's speaking to his own people.

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And here, you know, he's even laid out, you know, God is more interested in our love, and that we would know him, than sacrifices, than the outward shows and professions of faith, you know, we talk about that religious duty.

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God does desire those things, but he's more concerned about the heart, and so to give one without the other is vain.

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So yeah, he's primarily talking about himself, but all the world ought to love him. That's it.

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And remember, the demonstration of love is obedience to his commandments.

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It's easy to say I love you, it's more difficult to demonstrate that. So, I mean, that's something that we want to keep in mind.

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And how else do we love him? Well, by loving them. Right.

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You know, by this they will know that you're my disciple, that we have love for one another. Right. You know, so,

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I mean, it's not just love in an abstract. Right. You know, it's concrete, tangible demonstration, which is, we follow that even from God.

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You know, in Acts of Romans 5, he demonstrated his love for us in that he gave us

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Jesus Christ. You know, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

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So, love is not just an emotion. Right. Now, it is, but not just that.

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But it's so much more than just the emotion. Right. Right.

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Yeah, I mean, as I said, those were the words of Jesus. You know, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

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All right. And his commandments, if you love him, they're not burdensome. I love the emotional side.

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What's that? He loves the emotional side. That's right. Tell Ginger I said so. Amen. Amen.

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Okay. So, he desires our love, and love is feeling, but it is shown in obedience, and that's how it's manifested.

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So, we'll move on to number seven. God has deserved our love. How has he loved us?

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Our affections should be kindled at the fire of God's love. What a miracle of love is it that God should love us when there was nothing lovely in us.

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When you were in your blood, I said unto you, live. The time of our loathing was the time of God's loving.

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We had something in us to provoke God's fury, but nothing to excite his love. What love, passing understanding, was it to give

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Christ to us? That Christ should die for sinners. God has sent all the angels in heaven wondering at this love.

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Augustine says, the cross is a pulpit, and the lesson Christ preached on it is love.

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Oh, the living love of a dying Savior. I think I see Christ upon the cross bleeding all over.

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And so here, as Pastor Jensen just mentioned. That passage in Ezekiel is probably one of the heaviest passages in Ezekiel.

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It's the longest, too. Well, I wouldn't even say.

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You should read it. And you'll be shocked, but it will really open your eyes.

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All right. Well, there's homework from Jerry to go home and read Ezekiel 16.

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I just finished reading it. And if you don't know, Jerry will be teaching on Sunday School sometime in the future.

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Future. In the future. So we won't get a timed text on that soon.

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It's near. It's at hand. Before the end. If the

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Lord wills. If the Lord tarries. All right. So go home and read Ezekiel 16.

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But yes, what do we see here? There was this miracle of love.

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Nothing in us that was lovely. Nothing in us deserved it, as we just said. And this is more motivation that he deserves our love.

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Did I see a hand? Almost a hand. No. I was just scratching. Okay. There seems to be an overlap in some of these, but there are innumerable aspects to consider.

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He who first loved us. Many want to question God's plan and why he does what he does and how he could have done it differently.

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You know, and we think about, well, God says he loves us. Well, if he loved us, he'd want me to be happy. If he loved me, he would do this.

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If he loved me, he would give me that. Doesn't he understand, right? And we question

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God's love. And yet the question is, who has the wisdom or the power to be

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God, to spin the world into motion, to maintain all things and provide a perfect standard of righteousness?

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And although we fail to uphold it, he provides salvation at great cost to himself, giving up his beloved son.

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And he endures much sin with great patience from even those of us, we who belong to him.

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So how patient are we when we feel disrespected or if we're powerless to do something about it?

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I think I was just going off on some thoughts on my own here. But just thinking about, well, if God loved us, wouldn't he do this and wouldn't he do that?

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And I think when we allow ourselves to have the mentality to start thinking that we might be wiser than God, I don't think we appreciate the patience or the wisdom that he has exhibited to us, that if we were in his place, what would we do differently?

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We would make a very big mess of it. So God has deserved our love. Any questions or comments on that before I move to the next one?

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Jerry? Just one real quick comment, and it's kind of the obvious, but we too often forget his love and just remember his gifts.

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And that's something that no matter how well versed we think we are, we can very easily fall into that trap.

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And as we look around us today and start to see some of the things crumbling, some of the things questionable happening, we have to remind ourselves of God's love for us and recognize that this very well may be something that is pushing us back toward his love.

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Absolutely, man. All things working for good, and we have to remember what that greatest good is, right?

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Who remembers? A couple of verses later. What's our greatest good? To be conformed to the image of Christ.

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To be conformed to the image of Christ, to be like him, right? That's our greatest good, is to be like Christ.

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And God in his perfect love for us is working all things to help us to that perfect end. Okay, we'll go on to number eight.

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Oh, I'm sorry. I read the second half of number seven.

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Talking about seeing Christ bleeding, I think I hear him say to us, put your hand into the wound in my side.

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Feel my bleeding heart. See if I do not love you, and will you not bestow your love upon me?

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Will you love the world more than me? Did the world appease the wrath of God for you? Have I not done all this?

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And will you not love me? It is natural to love where we are loved. Christ having set us a copy of love and written it with his blood, let us labor to write after so fair a copy and to imitate him in love.

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We love him because he first loved us. So continuing on with that number seven, the motivation that God has deserved our love.

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He says that pretty clearly. Number eight. Love to God is the best self -love.

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It is self -love to get the soul saved. By loving God, we afford our own salvation. He who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him.

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And he is sure to dwell with God in heaven. Who has God dwelling in his heart? So that to love

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God is the truest self -love. He who does not love God does not love himself. Have fun with that.

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Well, I could respond to that, okay? The initial thought is, well, we love ourselves too much, right?

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But if we really understood God's love and who God was, who he is, and the magnitude of that, if we fall short of loving him, we're putting ourselves in dire straits and possibly eternal hell.

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So that's not love to yourself at all from that perspective. It is in our best self -interest to love

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God indeed. I was going through these notes just as we had a guest speaker a couple of weeks ago.

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I said, oh, look at that. It reminded me of some of the things that were brought up. And I think for those of us who are

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Reformed longer, we get a little, you know, we want to clarify how that's taken.

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As I'm going through the notes here and I'm looking through all the motivations, there's times where I'm looking at it and I'm thinking about, is this a proper motivation?

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Is this how we would normally think? And it was getting near the end, so we'll have some time.

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We'll bring this up again later on, talking about the various motivations, where sometimes

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God seems to articulate through the scriptures the motivation for his people.

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And it seems almost carnal. It doesn't seem spiritual. You think about church discipline, you know.

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Think about the Apostle Paul telling Timothy, you know, about rebuking those.

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You know, if they persist, rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may see in fear. Like that's their motivation not to, you know, to go where they shouldn't go.

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Is that, you know, look what's going to happen to you. And even here, you think about Ephesians 5, where it's talking about the husband loving his wife and saying, he who loves his wife loves himself.

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You know, no one ever hated his own body, but cherished it and nourished it. So in this one flesh union, it's in one's best interest to love and nourish your wife.

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And so there almost seems to be a times where it's appealing to, hey, this is for your good.

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And it seems like a carnal motivation rather than a spiritual motivation. But I think we have to understand that the

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Lord knows our frame, that we're but dust. You know, when it comes to motivation, yes, we want to grow in our righteousness and our sanctification.

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We should get to the point where we want to do the right thing because it's the right thing. We want to do all things out of a true love for God, considering all these motivations of just how glorious God is, how wonderful he is, how much he deserves our love.

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So whether it be on the positive end of loving God or on the, what someone would say would be the negative of fearing church discipline.

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You know, I don't want to be disciplined. I don't want to be put out. I don't want to be embarrassed. You know, when we think of, as we try to motivate, you know, we have a baby in the house, you know, and the way you try to motivate a baby to listen to you versus a toddler, versus a teenager, versus an adult, it changes from time.

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Hopefully it changes, you know, we still want them to do what's right.

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And we want them to do it because it's right. But sometimes they need a little help along the way because maturity level and everything.

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Are you guys tracking with me? Does this make sense? Am I offending or concerning anyone?

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I was going to tell the quote that John Piper normally says,

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I know Piper Tester might be a little upset, is this, you know, God is most glorified by us when we are most satisfied in Him.

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You know, which means that, you know, we're satisfied in everything that God gives us.

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We're satisfied in everything that God withholds from us. We're satisfied in the condition that he has us in right now because we know that all things work together for good.

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He's sovereign over all things. And when you can be completely content and satisfied in Him wherever you are, that brings

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Him glory because the world looks at us. Sometimes we're in a bad spot.

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But if we're not downcast and we're still rejoicing in God, they're like, why are you acting like this?

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Why? Because God loves me and I love God. You know, I have this relationship that it's not, it's not affected by what's happening.

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It's affected by Him. He's constant through, you know, whether things are going good or bad.

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We know that God's in the midst of us pulling us through. Right. Yeah, I think, well,

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I'll get one second, Terry. You know, when we see someone like Piper and we can appreciate,

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I mean, I've read some of the stuff. There's certain things I appreciate. I think for us or for those of us who think there might be a little bit of an imbalance with Him, there's truth in what he's saying because the scriptures relay that.

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I think sometimes the imbalance is kind of putting the cart before the horse or the focus, the emphasis on what we want to, you know, and out of what we want, we're going to love and serve

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God rather than putting God first. It's, I wonder if it leans a little too man first, but there's truth in it.

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If you keep the balance, if you keep things, and Jerry and then Maria. The thing I was going to say is that the peace of God within us, right, gives us the ability to live a peaceful life, all right, with relations in relationship with God, such that we can be content no matter what is going on around us.

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The only problem is we keep getting in the way. Okay, very good.

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I mean, I'm just thinking, what's going on with John Piper? Oh no, we can't do that. John Piper is a proponent, a teacher of Christian hedonism, you know, and speaking of the, how's the best way to, you want to help us out there,

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Pastor Jens? I know you're more familiar with it. Yeah, what Piper says, and it was a good point, is that your motivation is always self -interest, and the best self -interest is that even when you love

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God, it's in your best interest. And my complaint and what I have a problem with is his exclusivity.

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He says it's always self -interest, and there is no such thing as pure motivation to love

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God without, because we know that by doing that, it will turn out for our good anyway.

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I disagree with that. I think that love, part of the maturing process of the Christian, the sanctification process of the

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Christian, is when you first become a Christian, let me put it this way, you're just happy you're not going to hell.

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Maybe that's even your motivation for coming to Christ, is I don't want any part of hell.

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I heard about heaven, that's what I want. Self -interest, right? But it's not bad, because like you say, that's what the scripture teaches.

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But we are also to grow in Christ and to become more and more like him, who gave himself, and we can learn how to give ourselves, not for whatever

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I'm going to do, but simply because it's going to please my Savior. And I think there can be such a thing as a pure motive.

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And he talks about, you know, like even you give your wife good gifts, you know, because, you know, ultimately it's going to turn out, it's going to be for your, you're going to get a benefit.

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I disagree with that. There's times I've done things with my wife, I didn't want to do them, but I knew that they put a smile on my wife's face, and just to see her smile, you know, to know that I've done something good for her, not because she's going to do something bad for me.

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I think your statement is well said. There's an imbalance.

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And I think he misses that. Yeah. That's my complaint. Yeah, there's certainly truth to it, and the scripture bears that out.

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But I think it would almost be like a, perhaps a maturity thing. You want to grow in your sanctification, because there's times where you're going to do something, and in the temporal, there's going to be no actual benefit to you.

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You know, if you're doing something for someone, and they're completely unaware of it, there's no reward for that, you know, in your reputation or whatever.

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It's pleasing to God, and you want to be pleasing to God. You love God, and you love his people, and so you want to do those things.

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That would be a pure motivation. Chris, and then Jerry. So true self -love flows out of our...

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True self... Is that what's being said here? I think, when he says here, it is the best self -love,

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I think there's a self -love already, you know, like in Ephesians.

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He says, you know, what man ever hated his body, but he cherishes and nourishes it. You know, we love ourselves, and that's the problem, even when people, they hate themselves.

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It's like they just hate that they're not doing what they expect of themselves. There's actually like a root of pride even underneath that, that they're unhappy.

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But everyone wants what's best for themselves. They're loving themselves, and they're doing what's best for themselves in their mind.

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But our love is corrupt, and twisted, and perverse, apart from God. So when we have love for God, we're going to love ourselves better.

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It's in our best interest to love God. It is to our benefit. Does that make sense to your question?

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All right, I see Jerry, Maria, Pastor Jensen. Pastor Jensen first. Yes, Rank. What's that?

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He's exercising executive privilege. There you go, Rank. But you need to understand, you've got to put

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Watson in context. Right. Remember what he's writing, okay? There's no such thing as a self -love movement.

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Right, the self -esteem, yeah. We are very much influenced by the term self -love, as it has been put out by philosophers and psychologists in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

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That's not what Watson means. What Watson means is, if you really love yourself, you would understand that if you love

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God, that's the best type way you can love yourself. If you want to please yourself, you're going to please yourself in the short term, but not in the long term, you know?

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Right. He's not referring to the self -love movement. Yeah, we're kind of steep in that nowadays, but he's thinking more about Ephesians 5.

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He's thinking about Paul. I just, in piggybacking on Pastor Jensen, there's another one, executive privilege.

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We'll get to you, I promise. What comes to my mind, again, is a pithy statement. Selfless love is the best love for self.

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Selfless love. When you're loving someone just purely for their sake, that's the best love for yourself.

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You're not doing it with a motive to receive anything. It's completely selfless, but that ends up being the best love for yourself.

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You're out of the picture. Pastor Anthony has a thousand. I gotta get the book.

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I gotta get a cheat sheet. Cherry, Maria, go ahead. Getting back to Piper.

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Yes, Piper. I'll share a short story, but it'll show how this era can really go astray.

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I was teaching first and second graders Sunday school years ago at Grace, and I was using

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Piper's material. This particular topic was the material for that Sunday, and so I taught it as it was.

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I had at least two children raise their hand. You mean I can't do anything good?

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So you can see where they took it right away. You're saying everything's for self. There's an element of anything you do, it's for yourself right away.

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That means I can't do anything good? I couldn't answer them. Oh, that's fun.

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That's why I get away from those Sunday school materials. Just go straight from the scriptures. It's dangerous.

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This is what they gave me. I'm sorry. Maria, and then I think that's all Mike's hands up.

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No, I think it's just after the paradox of eating Christ, we finally find it.

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I think I've said this before, but as the

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U .S. entered God, but it's actually out of his benevolence because that's what's best for us, is just loving and worshiping

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God. Yeah, we have to remember, we're designed for a purpose. If we don't fulfill that purpose, we're a mess.

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Purposeless. Purposeless, exactly. Thank you. Mike. Yeah, I just wanted to add, you know, he said, he knows the value of our souls.

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So we should know the value of our souls. And if we do value our souls in the future, kind of the law of self -preservation,

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God has softened over that and uses that to benefit us as well.

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And when we serve him, we do do good at our self -preservation, but it's to glorify him as another, and to bless others.

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Yeah, the question is, what is our motivation, you know? I mean, here, Watson is giving us 20 different possible motivations to love

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God. And some might hit us differently than others.

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Some seem more appropriate, and then they make sense, and then something like us. And I think part of it is the context of our day where, you know, we're trained to think about ourselves first, you know.

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I mean, that's just our mindset in this culture. Oh, we've got to put number one first. We've got to avoid toxic people and toxic relationships.

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We're all about preserving ourselves. To love God is in our best interest, and it is the best self -love.

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And so that should be a motivation in that, but hopefully not our only motivation.

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So we just want to strive and keep the balance, which is like everything else in the Christian walk, is keeping the right balance through it.

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So we'll move on to the next one. Good, good interaction. Appreciate it. Number nine.

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Love to God evidences sincerity. The upright love you. And that's

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Canticles, Song of Solomon. Many a child of God fears he is a hypocrite.

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Do you love God? When Peter was dejected with the sense of his sin, he thought himself unworthy that ever

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Christ should take notice of him or employ him more in the work of his apostleship.

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See how Christ goes about to comfort him. Peter, do you love me? As if Christ had said, though you have denied me through fear, yet if you can say from your heart you love me, you are sincere and upright.

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To love God is a better sign of sincerity than to fear him. The Israelites feared God's justice.

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When he slew them, they sought him and inquired early after God. But what did all this come to?

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Nevertheless, they did but flatter him with their mouth and lied to him with their tongues, for their heart was not right with him.

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That repentance is no better than flattery, which arises only from fear of God's judgments and has no love mixed with it.

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Loving God evidences that God has the heart, and if the heart is his, that will command all the rest.

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I just want to make sure this... Oh, okay. So, many a child of God fears that they are hypocrites.

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True or false? All right, that's a joke. The interesting part is, do true hypocrites fear that reality?

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That's what I always wonder. Do true hypocrites fear that they are actually hypocrites?

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Where, I mean, I've known many believers, people I truly believe are believers, who fear that they're hypocrites because they know that their actions at times don't line up with their profession of faith, don't line up with what part of them wants to do and do right, and yet they find themselves failing, they find themselves struggling.

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We think of Romans 7 as the Apostle Paul saying, the things

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I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do do. And I do believe that is, he is speaking after being converted and not before, because it really doesn't make sense before, and it doesn't go over the context of the book.

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You know, Paul talks about the worldly sorrow that only leads to death. You know, there are people who, you know, just like the

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Israelites who didn't have a heart change, they feared God, they feared his judgments. I can think of people who were just mired in sin and hating the consequences, and yet every time they got free and clear for a moment, they're jumping right back in, like a pig to the slop, you know.

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So thoughts on this? Ashley? Basically, Jesus asked him three times, do you love me?

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And the first two times, love, the type of love was different from the last.

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So the type of love for the first two times when he said, do you love me, the sacrificial love.

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And Peter, because in the past, he had said, I would die for you. You know, and that's when

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Jesus was like, you're going to deny me before the root grows. You're going to have to deny me three times.

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Right. So basically, I think that that was to point out to him, you know, do you, like, do you love me?

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And then Peter, he answered back, yes, I love you. But the love that he answered back was actually, what did he call it?

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Galea, yeah, Galea love. It's like, he didn't want to say that other type of sacrificial love, because he knew that he didn't love him in that way, because he had, he didn't want to say that.

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But then later on, Jesus said that you will love me sacrificially, because he says, you will, you're going to die for me.

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You're not going to deny me, like he gives him that comfort at the end. But yeah, that's a very, that I didn't realize until recently, that it was different types of love that he was asking.

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Did you want to add to that? Okay, great. Yeah, so here he had failed him.

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And now he's asking him about the sincerity. You know, before he felt sincere, right?

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And yet he failed. And yet Christ, in his mercy, asked him about his heart. He doesn't question about his failure.

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He goes, well, what was all that back there? What he did was, he asked him three times. He denied him three times.

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He gave him three more times to profess that he does love him. And so the

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Lord is looking at our heart. He is looking at whether we're sincere and upright, because there are many who will flatter with their lips, right?

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And we talked about just even starting this conversation, chapter six, is there are many hypocrites.

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There are many who give false kisses to God. And yet how many actually love him out of all those who profess that they love him?

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So Christ asked Peter about not his failure, but his heart. I have a question here.

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Is it easier to fear or to love? I'm watching the broadcast.

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What's that? That's right. Fear. Fear. Easier to fear. Okay. Maria.

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I'm afraid of how much you love me. Oh, thank you. I was thinking, but I wasn't going to say it.

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I want them to be afraid of how much they love me. Okay.

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So it's easier to fear. Well, I mean, because fear kind of goes right to our self -interest, right?

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I mean, the Israelites, they were trying to cover all their bases, trying to worship God, but their heart wasn't with them.

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They're worshiping other gods. They're showing fear. They just want to make sure they're prospering, whatever it takes.

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Wouldn't fear be more reactive versus love be? Well, yeah,

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I would say fear is a reactive. And love can be both.

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Love can be reactive to thinking about what God has done. But it is more so because,

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I mean, fear is, you just react, right? Where love is, it's harder to love than to fear because it does require a sacrifice.

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You know, you have to put others before yourself. You have to think. So yeah, so it is proactive and reactive, and it is harder than...

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Except when it's about love for God, because if He loved us, we can love

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Him only because... Only, right. That's true. Right. So there you go.

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Well, it's interesting because it's like with God and the relationship between love between children and fathers, right?

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And like, it's kind of interesting to love and fear your father. Yeah, no, we're not discounting fear or saying fear is a bad thing.

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We're told to fear the Lord, to have a reverential fear. And there are times where, you know, we fear

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Him because we know that we have sinned, that we know that there's consequences. We know that there's chastening. So yeah, no, there is fear, but what did he say?

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Fear mixed with love? Oh, he's talking about repentance. Repentance is no better than flattery, which arises only from the fear of God's judgment and has no love mixed with it.

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So we should have a reverential fear of God, but love should be in there where the unbeliever is just afraid of the consequences.

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They have that worldly fear, but it doesn't bring actual change of heart. Consider Pharaoh, right?

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Pharaoh was being confronted with God, and he had a fear when things were going bad, but there was no love.

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There was no true repentance. He'd always, he'd get that moment clearance and harden his heart right back.

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Right, and that reminds me of what you said about maturity of faith.

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Yeah, that's one of my, I like to use that passage a lot. You know, when people are struggling with their salvation or am

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I saved or what, you know, and they recognize like, well, do you have anywhere else you want to go? You know, if you say,

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I know I'm falling short. I know I'm struggling with this, but if you know Christ is your only hope, that you're not willing to walk away, encourage yourself with that because many do walk away, and yet we see what

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Peter's response was along with the rest of the disciples. Where else would we go? You have the words of life. So other questions or comments about this before we move on?

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Okay, talking about how do we know we love sincerely, that repentance is genuine?

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Well, let me finish. I'll finish off with this before, and we'll start with number 10 next time.

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Talking about genuine repentance, talking about are we hypocrites, how do you know that repentance is genuine?

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Knowing that we can deceive ourselves, knowing that the heart is deceitful, and only the Lord truly knows the heart, how do we know repentance is genuine?

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When you're making an effort to not repeat the same sin that led you to repent, making an honest effort to not continue to do the same sin,

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I guess. Yeah, no, that's a valid answer. When you're bearing fruit, instead of wanting, there's some desire to seek to be confident, to love joy, to be joyful, creation, and when you bear fruit, and other people can tell it.

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Right, right. I mean, we know that, and we say only the Lord knows the heart, but the

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Lord Jesus told us, you'll know a tree by its fruit, and so we are to look and see if we see fruit or not.

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We are called to judge with a certain amount of discernment and righteously. So there is that thing, you know, struggling with besetting sin, what is our response?

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What are some examples in Scripture? So, you know, if we're struggling with besetting sin, you say, well, making an effort to stop doing that, you know, to get better, to not fall short.

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Can anyone think of some examples in Scripture of genuine repentance?

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David, in Psalm 51, a clean heart, a pure right spirit within me, the thing

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I was thinking about while we were talking, while everyone was talking about this, is when somebody truly repents, there's going to be pain, there's going to be anguish, but then with that anguish and that realization of the anguish, if you will, comes peace.

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That's where the restoration comes, because you recognize, you recognize who you were, but you recognize who

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God is, and you recognize that He loves you. So it's kind of like a, you know, it goes from pain to joy.

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Yeah, it is a process in there. You're going to experience some emotions going through it generally.

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And as Stephen thought, so anyone want to get, one second, David, how do we see repentance?

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We see Psalm 51, where he pours out his heart, you know, there's no excuses, there's no rationalization, and that's what he did when he was confronted by Nathan.

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You know, we have the stark contrast with him and King Saul before him, who's making every excuse under the sun as to why he didn't obey

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God. David offers nothing. David says, I've sinned, you know.

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So these are signs of repentance, you know, no making excuses, confession of sin, and making it obvious that he has repented and remorseful.

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A couple other examples of mine. Steve, what were you going to say? In the book of Jonah, when Jonah finally got to Nineveh, and he said, you know, in 40 days your city will be overrun, and everyone repented, and even the king repented in sackcloth and ashes, and it wasn't told to them that if you repent,

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God will forgive you. They just repented. Whether or not...

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Come what may, but hoping that God would have mercy. They certainly did.

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Stop everything. There's that John Piper again. Very good.

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Ashley. Um, when the prostitute, she had a bunch of expensive perfume, and she poured it on Jesus' feet, right?

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She used to use that perfume to smell good. I guess she prostituted herself, but then she poured it, she handed it over to Christ.

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That's a form of repentance. Using that, you know.

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No, that's a great example. That's a great example, because not only would she use the perfume to make herself more appealing for her sinful, you know, line of work, but it was very valuable.

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It was probably a store of the wealth that she was accruing by her sin, right?

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That she would have that much, and, you know, they're saying, why this waste? This could have been given to the poor.

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But she was giving it all to Christ. And so, to turn from what she used it for, and then to give everything to him, that's a, that's a clear sign of repentance.

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That's a great example. I was thinking of another person in the Gospels who showed repentance.

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It's a wee little man. There he is, Zacchaeus, right? And what does he say? You know, if I have to fraud anyone,

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I'll pay him back four times, I'm going to give half. First of all, he was going to give away half his, I don't know how much money this guy had.

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He's listening to his, you know, half of this and four of that. I'm like, wow, this guy's had really stored up some stuff here.

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He goes, I invested in the market too. But that's repentance. Someone who, you know, the taxpayers were, the tax collectors rather, the tax collectors were despised, especially if they were of the people of Israel, because they were, they were working for the

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Romans and, you know, fleecing the people and participating in their, you know, oppressing them through their taxation.

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But they were also stealing, you know, taking more than they, they had a right to and lining their own pockets because they have the

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Roman centurion behind them with their sword. So you're paying your bills, whatever they tell you your bills are.

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And yet to have Christ, he gave up everything. Money was no longer an issue for him.

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Two thieves that were crucified with Jesus. And what's really significant about that for me is that I'm not sure until Jesus told him that on that day, he would be in paradise with them, that there would be any benefit or restoration associated with his repentance.

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His repentance was merely, I deserve this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Recognizing that he, he was getting the punishment that he deserved.

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And this man who, just a guy to like lay into, you know, to pass the time waiting for them.

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And he recognized just how wrong he was. So yeah, we see repentance there. Think of Peter, you know, we just spoke about.

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And then Peter again, though, when I think of Paul confronting Peter, you know, to his face because he stood condemned.

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Peter, it's rough. And yet clearly he repented, you know, because Paul didn't say watch out for him.

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He's left faith, you know, and he even says, you know, our dear brother, Paul, and, you know, writing scripture and everything.

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So we see his repentance. You know, he was humbled from his failure the first time, but unfortunately that doesn't mean that he would be impervious to failures later on.

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And yet the reputation and standing he had as an apostle, as one of these main ambassadors for Christ, and yet still recognized he was wrong and humbled himself.

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So these are some of our signs of repentance. No excuses, brokenness, remorse, restitution.

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These are some of the signs of true repentance that we can know that we're not just saying we're sorry, but God has given us the means to demonstrate that we truly are repentant over it.

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And so that will help to encourage us as to whether our heart is upright or not. But so we'll close off there.

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Questions. Wow, I actually timed the slide right for questions. All right. Any questions or comments before we close and go to prayer?

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No? All right. Very good. I appreciate the questions, the comments, the answers, the interaction.