Understanding Repentance

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While you're standing, if you'll open your Bibles, we'll turn to Acts chapter 20.
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And as we remain standing, we'll read verses 17.
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And we're only going to go down to verse 27.
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I've decided, rather than moving forward, I'm going to focus on one particular part of this text today, specifically verse 21.
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But to provide the context, I want us to read verses 17 to 27 as our opening text.
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Now, from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
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And when they came to him, he said to them, You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
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But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself, if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
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And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
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Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I pray that now you would sanctify me for the task of preaching, and use me at this moment as a herald of the gospel.
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Father, I pray that you would forgive my iniquities, and Lord, that you would use me in spite of my shortcomings, that you would keep me from error, and Lord, that I would be the vessel of your spirit today to preach your truth.
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I pray, Lord, for your congregation here.
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I know, Lord, that in this multitude it is mixed, believer and unbeliever, some standing right next to one another.
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And I pray, Lord, for the believer, that they would understand better today what it means when we talk about repentance and faith.
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And Lord, for the unbeliever who has yet to bow his knee or her knee to Jesus Christ, Lord God, that they would be called to repentance and faith today.
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It is our prayer in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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Yesterday afternoon, I had the blessing of going again with Brother Mike to the stadium downtown where we were able to preach the gospel in the open air.
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And it was nice also to have the ladies, Pat and Rosanna, with us, handing out tracts and having conversations.
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And it was a wonderful and encouraging time.
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And yet, every time we go, and I admit I have not been a very small percentage of times.
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Mike has gone so many times.
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But every time I go and we go to do preaching in the open air, I'm reminded of just how much the world doesn't like that.
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The world is not a fan of open air preaching.
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In fact, so much so that even the church in many areas, churches are opposed to open air preaching.
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Some just say it's wrong, you shouldn't do it.
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Some discourage it in every way.
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And I've been to some conferences with the Herald Society, which is a group that focuses on open air preaching.
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And I've heard many, many stories of just men essentially being sanctioned by their churches to not do it, to not go out and preach.
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And it's an amazing thing that that would happen, but it does happen.
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But I think that what has happened, in a sense, is that people like the churches that go out with the signs, with the repulsive words on them and things, and go out and shout obscenities, have really brought disparaging thoughts about what it means to open air preach.
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And so oftentimes, you know, what we try to do when we're out there is to make a distinction between us and them.
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But also, and some of you may remember this, and it's probably been more popularized in films than it has even in real life, but there was a time where men would stand on street corners with just signs that said repent.
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And would shout, repent, repent.
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As people walked by, they would just use the word repent.
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To the point that the word repentance has almost, in a sense, become a punchline.
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The word repentance in the world has almost become, you know, well that's those crazy people that just go about yelling repent, repent.
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And even in some satirical movies, you'll see people running along when the sky is falling, and they're just yelling repent, repent.
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And so the idea and the concept of repentance has, in a sense, fallen out of favor for many people.
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And yet, when we go to the Bible and we look at what the Bible has to say, it is replete with the concept of preaching repentance when we go and preach.
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And even though that term and that word has become very unpopular with the world, it is the term that the Bible uses when we're out preaching.
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We are calling men and women to repentance.
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And so today, and I must admit, this was not my original plan.
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The Lord, as I was out yesterday with Mike, and I came home last night, I was thinking about what we had done, thinking about preaching in the open air, and I was thinking about what I wanted to preach today, and I went back to the text, and if you look at chapter 20, you notice in verse 21 that Paul talks about what he did when he was preaching among the Ephesians.
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Remember, he was there for three years.
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Remember, Paul had, this was his third missionary journey.
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He had gone through Ephesus on the way home from his second missionary journey, and then he went back to Ephesus, and he had taught for three years, two of those years being in the Hall of Tyrannus, where he was there as a teacher and disciple maker, and this is what he says about those two years.
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He says, basically, I've been teaching in public and from house to house, meaning he was doing this, he was making his public ministry and his personal intimate house to house ministry this, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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That, in a sense, that short section could be called the crux or the thrust of Paul's theology.
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It was the heart of what he wanted to get across to people.
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Was there more to Paul's theology? Yes.
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Did Paul have a tremendous theology proper and understanding of the nature of God? Yes.
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Did Paul have a tremendous Christology and understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ? Yes.
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Did Paul have a tremendous pneumatology, understanding of the Spirit and his work in the lives of believers? Absolutely.
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But the crux of his teaching was repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.
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And so, as I was preparing, last night I went home, and I normally prepare my messages Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the week.
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I'm focusing, I'm studying, reading, preparing, so I usually work very early.
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I was up late last night on this message because I wanted to stop here.
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Rather than go ahead, which was my intention, was to go down to verse 28 and continue.
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Rather than doing that, I want to go back to verse 21, and I want to talk about the concept of repentance.
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Because I honestly believe that repentance is the unsung song of the modern church.
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It is the unmentioned truth in many pulpits.
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And I just, rather than moving ahead, I want to spend today discussing the often misunderstood relationship between repentance and faith.
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And the title of the message, of course, is Repentance Towards God, because that's what Paul said he preached.
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I preached repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.
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So, we're going to begin now.
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Now, the concept of repentance has fallen out of favor in many modern expressions of the Christian life.
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It has been rightly observed that often pastors look for other terms to use.
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Because the word repentance, or the command to repent, has become a seemingly harsh style of language.
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In fact, those who preach repentance are said to run the risk of sounding like the old hellfire brimstone preachers, the tent revivalists who just go about barking the order to repent to their audience.
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Some have even taken the position that preaching repentance is wrong now.
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That we should not preach repentance.
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I found an article where a preacher said in the article, we are called to preach the gospel, not repentance.
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And I thought, what in the world does that even mean? We're called to preach the gospel, and not repentance.
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That's like saying we're called to go swimming, but not get wet.
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It doesn't make any sense.
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This is a direct quote from the article.
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Direct quote.
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Repentance is one of the most important things you'll ever do, but you don't get people to repent by telling them to repent.
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Instead, give them a reason to repent, and they'll repent.
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But that ain't some post-modern gobbledygook.
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And it sounds good.
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Man, I know some seminary students listen to this, and it's just, oh my, oh me.
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I don't want to say harsh words, and boy, I don't want to be one of those guys holding the sign to say repent.
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So I'm just going to not ever say it in my messages.
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But I want to just point something out to you.
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You don't necessarily have to go there, but if you want to write these texts down, if you go to Matthew chapter 4 and verse 17, right after Jesus comes out of the wilderness, remember He was baptized by John of the Jordan, He goes out into the wilderness to experience a time of testing to demonstrate that He Himself was perfect and unable and unwilling to yield to the temptation of Satan.
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After that, His ministry officially begins with what? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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And if you go one chapter over to Matthew chapter 3, you will see that the greatest prophet, by the way, that's not my opinion, that's Jesus' opinion, and I think Jesus is right.
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As Jesus said, among women, there's none greater, been born of woman, than that of John the Baptist.
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Right? He's the greatest preacher outside of Jesus Himself.
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Greatest prophet outside of Jesus Himself.
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And what was His words in Matthew 3 verse 1? In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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So when this guy says it's wrong to preach repentance, what do you say to Jesus, whose first words of preaching ministry was repent? What do you say to John, one of the greatest prophets in history? Well, you got that wrong.
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People don't repent just because you tell them to, John, don't you know that? Aren't you smart enough to realize that nobody's going to do it just because you say so? One writer asked this question, he says, what happened to repentance? You rarely hear the word mentioned in most churches today, even in Baptist, Pentecostal, or Evangelical circles.
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Pastors nowadays seldom call for their congregations to sorrow over sin, to mourn and grieve over wounding Christ by their wickedness.
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And instead, the message we hear from many pulpits is, just believe, just accept Christ, and you'll be saved.
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How many of you have heard that? How many of you have gone and listened to pastors, and they just appeal to you to accept, appeal to you to believe, but they never call you to repent? Beloved, this is the missing part of Evangelical preaching.
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We have given up the call to repentance, and we have replaced it with easy believism.
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Yesterday when I was preaching, one of the things I said, I said, so many of you walking by believe in Jesus, but you are not saved.
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Do you realize you can believe in Jesus and not be saved? Because belief and faith are not absolutely equal.
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Because I can, as I said, I can believe something and not trust it.
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And faith in Scripture is more akin to trust than belief.
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I've said it before, and I don't mean to make such a crass analogy, but I believe parachutes work, but I ain't jumping out of no airplane.
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It takes a trust to step out of that airplane.
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Because you ain't got nothing between you and the ground but air.
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And if you didn't trust that parachute, if you didn't trust the person who packed it, if you didn't trust the things that are holding it tight to your body, if you didn't trust that it was going to open properly, and it was going to glide your body down to that earth nice and safely, you wouldn't jump out of that airplane.
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And that's the difference between belief and trust.
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And when the Bible says, pas hapistuon, in John 3.16, pas hapistuon, that means all the ones believing.
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That's when you read John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all the ones believing will not perish but have everlasting life.
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Pas is all.
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Hapistuon, the believing ones, or all the ones believing, will not perish but have everlasting life.
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Hapistuon.
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So, it doesn't mean just to believe something in the mind, or to think something is true, it means to trust in it, to have faith in it.
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And there is a difference.
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And faith and repentance, well, I'm getting ahead of myself now, but faith and repentance go together.
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But as I said, repentance has fallen on hard times in the modern church, yet the Bible is replete with statements regarding repentance.
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We already noted Jesus and John preached repentance over and over again.
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We see the word arise in Scripture.
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And if you have a King James Bible, the word repentance or repent is used over 100 times.
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It's translated from the Greek in the King James Bible over 100 times.
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I think it's like 109 times from the Greek New Testament.
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27 books, the word repentance used over 100 times.
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One of the most common outside of the articles and things like that.
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So, we've talked about repentance, but what is it? This is what I wanted to get to today.
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I want to talk about what repentance is, what it's not, and some truths regarding it.
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What is repentance? Well, the Greek word for repentance, which some of you probably know because you might have heard me talk about it before, maybe you've done your own study on the subject.
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But the Greek word for repentance is metanoia.
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Metanoia is a combination of two words.
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Meta being the prefix, meaning to change.
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And noia being the root, meaning the mind.
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So, metanoia etymologically means a change of the mind.
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But that is not all it means.
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Any more than if you look at television.
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I talked about this in Sunday school this morning because I'm teaching in the Greek.
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If you look at the word television, etymologically, what does television mean? Far-seeing.
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But you know there's a lot more to a television than just far-seeing.
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Etymologically though, tele and vizio, that's what the two words mean.
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So, etymologically, metanoia means to change the mind.
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But there is, in that, a meaning all its own.
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Repentance has a meaning all its own.
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And I want to share with you from Laonata.
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Laonata is one of the lexicons of the Greek language.
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One of what's called a semantic lexicon.
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I want to tell you because I think it's written so well here.
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Laonata says this about the word repentance.
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It means to change one's way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.
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Hear it again.
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To change one's way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and repentance.
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It doesn't just mean to change your mind.
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It means to change your life.
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The changing of the mind changes the life.
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Dr.
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MacArthur's website references this.
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And I like the way it says here.
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It says, The biblical concept of repentance involves far more than merely a casual change of thinking.
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Biblically, a person who repents does not continue willfully in sin.
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Repentance is turning from sin and it always results in changed behavior.
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While sorrow from sin is not equivalent to repentance, it certainly is an element of scriptural repentance.
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So what is repentance then if we look at it definitionally? It's a change of mind that results in a change of life.
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Changed mind, changed life.
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Simply put, repentance is a changed mind or heart which results in a changed life.
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It may be accompanied by sorrow or shame, but those things are not the same as repentance.
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You realize you can be shameful and not repentant? You realize you can be sorrowful and not repentant? How do I know that? Well, because old Judas hung himself, but he wasn't repentant.
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I mean, he was sorrowful.
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He was shamed of himself.
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Shame and sorrow are not repentants, because shame and sorrow don't always lead to a change.
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I've heard of people, I get so sorry in the morning for what I did last night, but tonight I plan to do the very same thing.
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Right? So now that we have a little better understanding of what the word means, I want to now give you four truths.
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And had I known this was what I was going to preach earlier in the week, I would have put these in the bulletin.
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But I didn't, so I didn't, so I didn't.
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Okay.
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So if you want to write them down, you can.
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But there are four truths regarding repentance that every believer ought to understand.
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If you're a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, there are four things about repentance that you need to understand.
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Number one, faith and repentance can be distinguished, but cannot be separated.
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Let me say that again.
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Faith and repentance can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.
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One of the most common questions people ask, and I've got to shed this lining, excuse me.
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One of the most common questions people will ask, and this is very common.
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I don't know if you've ever heard this question, but as a pastor I tend to get the lion's share of the questions that people have about their theology.
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And people ask, is repentance necessary for salvation? People will ask that question.
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Is repentance necessary for salvation? And sometimes people have a fear of affirming that because we affirm something called sola fide.
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And what does sola fide mean? Justification by faith alone.
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And people are afraid that if you add repentance, you are adding a work to sola fide, thereby denying sola fide.
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If we are justified by faith alone, repentance can't be necessary because repentance and faith are distinct from one another.
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Right? That's the syllogism.
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However, what we must understand is that the Bible never makes a distinction or allows for a division rather, it makes a distinction, but doesn't allow for a division between repentance and faith.
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Though they are not the same thing, they are inextricably linked.
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Faith means to trust in what Christ has done.
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Repentance begins with recognizing why Christ did what He did.
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Do you understand that? That faith is trusting in what Christ did and repentance is recognizing why He did it.
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A person who says, I believe, but I refuse to repent, does not genuinely understand what they claim to believe.
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Is that simple? If you say, I believe in Jesus, but I refuse to repent, then I would have reason to call your belief in Jesus into question because the two are inextricably linked.
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If you go back to our opening text, Paul preached repentance and faith together.
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He didn't preach one without the other and I love the fact that he says this, repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.
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Why that way? God is the judge and the one of whom we have offended and Christ is the one who has received in Himself the penalty that we were due.
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So Christ we trust in and God we repent to.
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Now you say, well Jesus is God as one with the Trinity, but in this specific reference, Paul is talking about God who we have offended and Jesus who has taken our offense.
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So we repent to God and we trust in Him who took the penalty of our offense.
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And in those, there is no separation.
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You can't say, I'll take the good of Jesus and trust in Him, but I'm not going to repent towards God.
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What foolishness would that be? So the first thing, faith and repentance can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.
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I have had people, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, I've had people say, which one comes first? Do you believe and then repent? Or do you repent and then believe? Well, I will say this about that.
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Regeneration.
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Regeneration.
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When you are born again, is the cause of both, faith and repentance.
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So how they work out in time is less important than what they are the result of.
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Because the first thing that happens is God saves your wretched soul and He gives you new life.
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And out of that is birth, faith and repentance.
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So in time, how those work out is not as important as you understanding what precedes both.
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And that's regeneration.
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And that's my second point.
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The first point is faith and repentance can't be separated.
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The second point is this.
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The ability to repent is a gift from God.
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Mark it down.
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The ability to repent is a gift from God.
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Sometimes people say, well, repentance is a work.
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Pastor Foskey, you're making salvation by works.
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And I have been accused of works-based salvation.
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One of the websites I was looking at claimed that not me, but another preacher who preaches repentance said that that person was a dangerous heretic for preaching repentance.
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How are you going to call somebody a heretic for preaching what Jesus preached? But anyway, I just say he was a dangerous heretic for preaching repentance.
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But the reality is repentance is not something you contribute to your salvation.
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Repentance is a result of God's work in your heart.
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This is not your earning your salvation.
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Any more than faith earns your salvation.
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Faith doesn't earn your salvation.
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Faith is the means by which you are justified.
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But that doesn't mean it's the reason for your justification.
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The reason for your justification is the work of Christ.
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It's a means by which God uses to justify your soul.
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But it's not the cause.
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The cause is the work of Christ.
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And again, 2 Timothy 2.24 tells us this.
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2 Timothy 2.24, Paul talking to Timothy.
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He says, The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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See, that's Paul talking to Timothy.
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He's like, look here, you're going to have some knuckleheads you have to deal with.
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Now this is the key standard version, but this is basically what he's saying.
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There are going to be some people in your life that's going to want you to be quarrelsome.
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There's going to be some people that want to argue with you, want to fuss with you, want to take it to the mat.
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He said, but you are going to have to correct them gently and lovingly and understand this.
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God is the one who will grant them repentance, not you.
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God is the one who will give them the ability to repent, not you.
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I can argue with somebody until I'm blue in the face.
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I can give them every good and sound argument for the truth that there is.
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And until God changes their heart, it's spitting in the wind.
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I don't mean it's unvaluable.
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We still do it.
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We proclaim the truth.
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We proclaim righteousness.
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We call people to repentance.
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But God changes the heart.
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And that's what we have to remember.
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Repentance and faith are gifts from God.
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And that's important to understand when you're thinking about total depravity.
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Because repentance is not just a choice that sinful people make.
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Repentance is the result of a heart that has been changed.
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And this leads us to number three.
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Number one, faith and repentance can be distinguished but not separated.
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Number two, the ability to repent is a gift from God.
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Number three, repentance is a necessary fruit of regeneration.
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That's a long sentence.
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Let me say it again.
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Repentance is a necessary fruit of regeneration.
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Someone who says they are a Christian but have never repented of sin are deceiving themselves.
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Now I want to show you this Bible verse.
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I wouldn't say it if I couldn't back it up with Scripture.
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Turn in your Bible to 1 John 3.
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And actually we could read the whole chapter.
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But just for time's sake, I want to just show you verses 9 and 10.
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So 1 John 3, look at verse 9.
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In the whole chapter, John's talking about sin as a lifestyle.
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Saying that no one who continually abides in sin can say they've been born again.
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But this is the culmination of several verses in verse 9.
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No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
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For God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning.
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And the idea of keeping on here is continual unrepentant.
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He cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
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By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
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Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his brother.
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It is so clear in this text that repentance is a fruit of regeneration.
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Because those who are not living a repentant life have not been born again.
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It's so clear and it's so scary.
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Because how many people do we know who live a willful life of abandonment regarding sin? And would look you in the face and say, yeah, but I believe in Jesus.
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I tell you what, you want to spend some time evaluating your heart, you read 1 John.
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It's serious, serious business.
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And the key, as I said before, the key to this is the idea of keeping on sinning.
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I think in the King James, maybe in the New King James, it simply just says, it just sins.
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But the underlying text, the underlying Greek does reference an ongoing habitual action.
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Because believers do sin and I need to make that clear.
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Believers do sin, a reality which John already recognized.
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If you read 1 John, in the very first chapter, he talks about the fact that if anybody says he doesn't sin or has no sin, he's a deceiver.
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He's deceived himself, he's self-deceived.
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If you come to me today and you say, I've never sinned or I didn't sin or I'm not a person who battles with sin, I would say you're either not got a pulse or you're sinning right now because you are a liar.
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Watch out, your little pants are going to catch on fire.
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You're a liar, liar.
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You're going to be in trouble.
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But the concept in 1 John 3 is the concept of the keeping on sinning.
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Lack of repentance is a indication of a lack of regeneration.
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In fact, that's the only thing that we have grounds for for church discipline.
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You realize that? The only thing that is grounds for church discipline is someone who refuses to repent.
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Someone in the church can fall into a grievous sin.
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And yet if they repent, what are we called to do? To forgive them because of what we have been forgiven.
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But what is grounds for dismissal from the assembly? Impenitence or the lack or refusal of repentance.
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That's the only thing.
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Because what does impenitence indicate? That they have not been regenerated.
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It's not all the time.
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There are people who have fallen into sin and then God saves them and it's a demonstration of his grace.
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But the only thing we can look at as a church when we're trying to make a decision, if we have to discommunicate or disfellowship someone, is impenitence.
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Number four and finally, and boy, I have so much more to say.
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Number four, this is important.
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As I was writing this, I wanted to make sure I said it correctly.
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So as I'm saying this last part, forgive me if I look like I'm tied to my notes.
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But I want to be clear and not say something wrong.
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Because we've already said faith and repentance can be distinguished but cannot be separated.
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The ability to repent is a gift from God.
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And repentance is a necessary fruit of regeneration.
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Those three things are true.
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But there's one last thing that needs to be understood.
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And if you're a believer today, if you are in Christ today, this is the one.
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This is the one that is often confusing and you need to hear.
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Your repentance will not be perfect in this life.
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I have sincere believers come to me wondering about their salvation.
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And almost always this is one of the questions.
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I just don't know if I have repented enough.
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And the reality is you haven't.
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No one has.
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Our repentance is not perfect while we remain in this flesh.
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And there is a struggle that remains.
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And if you are judging your salvation on the perfection of your own repentance rather than in the perfection of the work of Christ, you will always live in doubt regarding your position before God.
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And by saying that, I'm not denying anything I've said up until this point.
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I am simply demonstrating that there is a balance that has to be understood.
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Years ago I heard Dr.
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Sproul talking about a woman who came and she was tremendously burdened about her salvation.
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And he asked her.
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She was worried, am I saved? She was just dealing with that in her heart.
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And if you've never dealt with that, praise the Lord.
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I'm not going to say I've never dealt with it.
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I'm not going to say I haven't struggled with that at times.
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But almost always it's because I'm looking at the wrong thing.
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I'm looking at me.
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But it happens.
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This woman comes to him, comes to Dr.
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Sproul.
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And he has a simple question.
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He said, do you love God? And she said, yes, I love God.
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And he said, do you love God perfectly? And she sat back and she thought for a second and she said, no.
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He said, do you love God as much as you should? And she sort of grinned and said, well, I should love Him perfectly.
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So, no.
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And he said, but do you love God at all? Is there love for God in your heart? The true God as He is, not as an idol that you've created, but do you love God as He is? Do you have an affection for God? And she began to weep.
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Now, I want to take that idea and I want to just throw this to you as a thought.
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Have you repented perfectly? No.
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Have you repented as well as you should? No, because you should repent perfectly.
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But have you repented at all? And I ask that with this.
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Have you seen a change in your life from coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ? How has Christ changed your life? If you are the same person you were before coming to Christ, you probably have not come to Christ.
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There's an old story about Augustine, the 4th century church leader.
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And this story is, whether the truth of it is unknown, it has a very important focus.
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Because apparently, and we know that Augustine prior to his conversion was a very sinful man.
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And it is said that as Augustine was going for a walk, a woman that he knew prior to his conversion, who was herself a woman of ill reputation, saw Augustine and shouted to him, Augustine! Augustine! And he would not turn to her.
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So finally she came to him and she got in his face and she said, Augustine! It is I! And he looked at her and he said, Yes, but it is no longer I.
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Have you experienced a genuine life change? Can you look back over your life and see where God got a hold of your heart? And can you say with Augustine, Yes, it is no longer I.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for the opportunity to preach.
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And I pray, Lord, that this message will be used of you to call us all to repentance.
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For believers to understand that we are to forsake sin and seek righteousness.
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And for Lord, unbelievers, possibly here having made a confession of some sort, but have not bowed the knee and trusted in Jesus Christ and their lives have not changed.
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I pray that today, that you would change hearts, that you would change lives by the power of your Spirit.
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Only you can do it, God.
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Only you can change a heart, oh Lord.
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I pray that you would do that today.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Let's stand and sing together.