Sorrow And Repentance

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This morning we're going to be talking about the doctrine of repentance and also how the doctrine of biblical sorrow relates to the doctrine of repentance.
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I'm going to begin and open us in a word of prayer. I'm going to take a written prayer where it says,
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I, I'll make it corporate and insert we so that it represents the body here.
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Let's go to the Lord. Eternal Father, thou art good beyond all thought, but we are vile, wretched, miserable, blind.
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Our lips are ready to confess, but our heart is slow to feel and our ways reluctant to amend.
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We bring our soul to the break it, wound it, bend it, mold it.
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Unmask to us sin's deformity that we may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
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Our faculties have been a weapon of revolt against thee. As a rebel, we have misused our strength and served the foul adversary of thy kingdom.
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Give us grace to bewail our incessant folly. Grant us to know the way of the transgressors is hard, that evil paths are wretched paths, that to depart from thee is to lose all good.
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We have seen the purity and beauty of thy perfect law, the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns, the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls.
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Yet we daily violate and contempt its precepts. Thy loving spirit strives within us, brings us scripture warnings, speaks in startling providences, allures by secret whispers.
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Yet I choose devices and desires to our own hurt, impiously resent, grieve, and provoke him to abandon us.
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All these sins we mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon. Work in us more profound and abiding repentance.
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Give us the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears, yet ever trust and love, which is ever powerful and ever confident.
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Grant that through the tears of repentance, we may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.
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Amen. That was a prayer from the
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Valley of Vision Puritan Prayer Book, which is excellent and often available at our book table.
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I think there's an audio version of that by Max McLean that we sometimes have on the book table as well.
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Does anything strike you about that prayer in particular or that type of prayer?
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What do you think when you hear a prayer like that? Yeah. Sure. Yes.
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It is hard. Right. A low view of man and a high view of God.
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Anything else strike anybody about that prayer? Is that reflective of our prayers today?
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What are some of the sharp contrasts you might see between prayers? Sure. Absolutely.
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And in a sense, you don't get the sense that this writer who wrote this prayer had a low view of God's goodness.
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They didn't just glance over that. In fact, you don't find much in the way of speaking and writing on the doctrine of repentance in modern
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Christian literature. If you want to study repentance, you'll often have to go back to the
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Puritan writings. And a book like this by Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, a
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Puritan writer, is a Christian gem. But yet, books like this aren't being published today.
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It's not a popular subject, yet one that we have to and we must understand well.
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The basis I'm going to use for a working definition of repentance will come straight from the
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Westminster Shorter Catechism. It says this, Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto
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God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience.
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So in that definition, there's two components to sin. There's a repentance unto salvation.
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In the Bible, we're going to work through this a little bit more in the text. Repentance and salvation are often interchangeable terms.
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A call to repentance is the same as a call to salvation. But yet for the
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Christian, there's a second component to that, that after one is saved, repentance is a continual process of the putting off of sin and putting on of Christ, what's called the mortification of sins.
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Just aggressively removing ourself from sin and growing in the grace of Christ.
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So we have these two parts, but yet the Bible doesn't spend time dissecting this. When we hear the term repent or the charge to repent in scripture, it's not saying well this is the call to repentance for salvation, and this one is the call to repentance if you're a believer and you have sin in your life.
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There's general calls to repentance, and depending on who that audience is going after, that would dictate that person's proper response.
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And so I think it's appropriate if you hear a message on a call to repentance, if you're an unbeliever in there, you could be pierced by the sword of the spirit.
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The scripture being applied to your heart through the Holy Spirit could call you unto repentance slash salvation.
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A one in the same kind of occurrence, but yet the believer may be convicted of sin within their own lives and would be called to a repentance of that sin.
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And so we don't need to worry about heavily dissecting the distinction there, because one of the fruits of salvation is in fact repentance.
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When we see someone who's repentant, we say that's evidence of fruit of that person's salvation. So whether it's a call to or a response to being a
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Christian, all can be under the umbrella of repentance. So rightly understood, biblical repentance is a great truth that frees a believer from the weight of the guilt of personal sin.
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We think of the story of Pilgrim from the Pilgrim's Progress Christian, and we think of that weight of sin that is a burden that's taken off of him when he understands repentance.
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But wrongly understood, it becomes a meritorious work whereby subjectivity with respect to God's forgiveness can yield insecurity in Christ.
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We can often take repentance and say that you must repent and make that repentance somehow a work that would cause our salvation.
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That would be a wrong view of repentance. We also, practically speaking, when we think about repenting of our sins, we can wrongly classify it as apologizing.
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This happens with parenting. This can happen between believers. I might come to Becky and say,
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I feel badly, Becky. I feel like I need to apologize to you. But yet, the word apology comes from the
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Greek term apologia, which means to make a defense. We use that in Christian apologetics.
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We defend the faith. So when we're saying to someone, I want to apologize to you, we're almost saying, I need to defend myself.
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It's not a humble placing yourself at the foot of the cross, recognizing sin and turning from that sin.
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It's a poor choice of words that we use in our modern vernacular to say that we're sorry.
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And when we say that we're sorry, again, we're also often either sorry that we had personal ramifications of that sin.
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We're sorry that we got caught in that sin. Perhaps we're sorry that somebody else was hurt from that sin.
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But rarely does that sorrow reflect an attitude toward God. That's one of the texts we will look at, 2
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Corinthians 7 .10. So it is important because repentance is critical to the life of the believer.
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And there is no sin, this was said by Dr. Robert Raymond, there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation.
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Yet no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. So repentance is our only hope when dealing with sin.
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So first let's look at some false views of sorrow and repentance.
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When we talk about sorrow, sorrow is often referred to as simply feeling badly over past actions.
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That would be a very simple definition of the word sorrow. And so as Daniel alluded to, in the
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Bible we have a godly sorrow and we have a worldly sorrow.
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One will be one that is reflective of the Christian. Others will be a false sorrow, one that does not lead to salvation or reflect someone having salvation already.
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If we look at Hebrews 12, 14 -17, we have an account there of Esau.
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Hebrews 12, 14 -17. And I want you to listen to what it says about how after Esau, who sold his birthright in the
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Old Testament, what his response was to that. And we're going to evaluate the question of, is sorrow a sign of repentance or is sorrow always a sign of repentance?
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So in Hebrews 12, verses 14 -17, we see this.
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Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
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See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many may become defiled.
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That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
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This is our key verse here. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, that was his reason, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
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So Esau, he had sorrow. And in fact, his sorrow was so great that it brought him to tears.
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But the Bible also says in the same verse that he found no chance to repent. So it is possible for us to feel badly over past actions, regret them, wish we didn't do them, wish we didn't hurt others, whatever it might have been.
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But in this particular case, was there true biblical repentance?
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Was there a right relationship made or restored with God, with Esau?
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No, it's definitely not. So if we feel badly over sins, and we even cry over our sins, we should not assume that that means that we are repentant.
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In fact, wrong feelings of sorrow can often have other side effects.
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They can be coupled with other sins, such as anxiousness, self -pity, guilt, discouragement, regret.
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All those things can be the bad fruit, as it were, of a worldly sorrow, but yet none leading to repentance, only spiraling more down into our state of despair or sin.
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So how can we have right sorrow without becoming sort of introspective, always just thinking about ourselves?
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I think there was a good quote by Martin Lloyd -Jones in his book Spiritual Depression. He says this,
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But what is the difference between examining oneself and becoming introspective? I suggest that we cross the loan from self -examination to introspection when, in a sense, we do nothing but examine ourselves.
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When we, such self -examination, become the main and chief end of our life.
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We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection.
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And if we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with that kind of frown upon our face and saying,
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I am in great difficulty, it probably means that we are all the time centered upon ourselves, and that is introspection.
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And that, in turn, leads to the condition known as morbidity. I think
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Lloyd -Jones does a good job at classifying a false sorrow or a worldly sorrow.
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But the verse that Daniel was pointing out earlier is the next one we want to look at, 2 Corinthians 7 .10.
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2 Corinthians 7 .10 is a very important verse. In fact, I have this on the last note of our sheet as a recommended
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Scripture memory verse on the back of the bottom because this verse contrasts godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.
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If we look at the contrast in 2 Corinthians 7 .10, it says, For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
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So we saw Esau was an example of having the wrong kind of sorrow, an ungodly grief, what 2
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Corinthians 7 .10 calls worldly grief. It did not lead to repentance, and it did not leave him without regret.
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The other thing I want you to see in that verse, 2 Corinthians 7 .10, is the very first words. It says,
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For godly grief produces repentance. That's going to be important when we talk about what is the relationship between sorrow and grief with repentance.
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Another example of the wrong kind of grief, the worldly grief, the one that produces death, can be found in Matthew 27 .3.
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Anyone know what's being recounted in Matthew 27? That's exactly right,
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Judas. I'll open my text here, and I'm using the ESV here.
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Matthew 27 .3 says, Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind.
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And he brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying,
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I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. Judas changed his mind.
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He had a change in action. He recognized his sin. Did Judas experience godly repentance?
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You say, no. How do you know that? It says he changed his mind. He felt badly. He recognized he sinned.
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Absolutely. And so we can have things that can look an awful lot like, are we going to say something? Charlie?
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Absolutely. But on the surface, at that moment in time, it might have appeared that way to an onlooker.
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Another example of this can be in Luke 18 .23. We have the rich young ruler. And it says,
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He became very sad, for he was extremely rich. There was a sorrow experienced by the rich young ruler.
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But the rich young ruler, we have no evidence in Scripture to believe that he did anything but become sad.
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Yes. Well, I would always begin with salvation.
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You said maybe he's saved, maybe he's not. We shouldn't presume someone's a
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Christian right off the way. I think whenever we talk to someone about those issues, a proper assessment of their relationship with God, their state of salvation, is the first step.
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Because if they're in a wrong relationship with God, that has to happen before we can talk about what the
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Scriptures say about that particular issue. Because they've got a lot bigger issues than just cursing or whatever else it might be.
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And over time, through the process of sanctification, with biblical understanding of repentance, we can get there.
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And perhaps they don't understand what the Bible says about repentance. Maybe they're feeling worldly sorrow over their sins.
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And I hope we have the time to get there. And I'd like to get there, steps of working through repentance and then practical steps that we can take in our day -to -day life to put off those things.
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And that's a good point. And I think there's a right understanding of our position.
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In fact, looking back at that should give us joy, in a sense, to realize where we are now. But yet, somehow morbidly dwelling on it can also go too far in the wrong direction.
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But if we compare these wrong types of sorrow, these worldly sorrows that we see in the rich young ruler, in Judas, and so on, and we compare that to David in Psalm 51, where he says,
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Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgression.
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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you.
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And you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in my sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom and the secret heart.
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Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness in the bones that you have broken.
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Rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart,
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O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your
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Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit, that I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
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Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness."
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And it goes on from there. We look at this, and one of the observations someone made was that this is very
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God -centered. This realizes our position with God rather than these other things. It's really between men, and that's the big difference here when we look at a truly repentant sinner and an unrepentant, sorrowful person.
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So there are other false systems of repentance that are out there that trouble
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Christianity. I'm just going to briefly summarize some of them for you. We wouldn't as a church say we fall into any of these categories, but yet individually we may find ourselves practicing some of these things in part in our daily lives.
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One would be this idea of asceticism, which means that we merit
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God's favor by suffering. This might be somewhat linked to a false
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Roman Catholic view of penance, that we have to withhold things from ourselves, do things to ourselves.
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Historically in the church there have been people that have physically hurt themselves, self -inflicted things to try to deal with their sin, a wrong way of repentance.
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Pietism or mysticism would be something that came out of Germany historically, where we emphasize the experience, de -emphasize doctrine, we separate from God and the
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Word of God, and just kind of hope that sanctification happens without incorporating active biblical repentance in our life.
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Quietism, this would be the Quakers and other similar groups, where it's almost destroying our own will and having a passive position with respect to God.
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It's kind of the let go and let God. Have you ever heard someone say, I'm dealing with a sin,
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I'm just waiting for God to take care of it. That's a way that the false view of quietism can come into our lives and think that that's a proper way of repentance, and it is not.
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Antinomianism, this would say that, again, no church would say we're an antinomian church, it means against the law, but it says that we are right to God through our faith and that we give little attention to our violation of the law, that salvation is by faith alone.
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But the Bible interchanges the word faith and repentance.
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There is no true faith without true repentance, and there's no true repentance without true faith. And legalism, legalism is the thinking that what we do or don't do affects our standing with God.
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See, we are in a relationship with God as we are saved, and so our repentance, our actions that we do or don't do, don't change that position that we have with God.
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We are forever adopted into God's family. If we are saved and our recognition of that will yield, repentance will be a fruit of that rather than a causing agent of that.
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So don't ever think that your repentance causes your salvation. Your repentance will be a fruit of a regenerate heart.
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Let's see. So those are some false systems of repentance. Let's look quickly at some biblical data for what repentance is.
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In the Old Testament, there's two words often used for repentance, sub and naham.
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They both can be translated repentance. One often means to turn or return.
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That's the word. The verb means to turn or return. And the other one's more often translated to repent.
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If we look at some examples of these words used in Old Testament context, Isaiah 55, 7.
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I'll read 6 and 7. The prophet Isaiah says this. Seek the Lord while he may be found.
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Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
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Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and our God for whom he will abundantly pardon.
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What word in there do you think might be one of these two Hebrew verbs that I mentioned?
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Which English word in there? Return. That's correct. So it's a call to salvation and it's a call to repentance.
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Often the Old Testament prophets called to repentance, called to repentance, called to repentance.
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Change your ways, change your ways. Turn back to the Lord. And what were they saying?
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Corporately, nationally, Israel, they were not acting like believers. They were constantly called back.
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Turn back to God. It's really a call to salvation. And another example can be found in Joel chapter 2.
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Listen again. See if you can find any words in here that might be one of the two Hebrew verbs that can be translated into repentance.
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Joel 2, 12 to 13 says this. Yet even now declares the
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Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.
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Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster.
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What did you hear? Return. Return. Absolutely. Ezekiel 33, 11 says this.
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Let me start in verse 10. And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, thus have you said, surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them.
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How then can we live? Say to them, as I live, declares the
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Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
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Turn back. Turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
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Which word did we hear? Turn. That's right. So we have all these examples of turning.
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Job 42, Jeremiah 8. Turn from your sin, Israel. One of the best -known examples can be found in 2
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Chronicles 7 .14. It says this. This would be a famous National Day of Prayer verse.
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If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then
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I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. What are we saying here?
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Be saved? Is that the terminology used? No, it's turn from your sins.
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So this idea of salvation and turning from our sins, repenting, is synonymous.
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When we get into the New Testament, we see,
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I won't get into the text behind it, but we see that there's a prerequisite to biblical repentance, which is the knowledge of sin.
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It comes up in the book of Romans, chapter 1 and chapter 3. But more specifically, the two
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Greek words that come up that deal with repentance or are often translated repentance are metanoia and metanoeo.
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They both come from the same root. Also, we have the Greek word strepho, and strepho is literally this, turning.
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That's strepho. But all of these words are translated either turn, repent, or be converted, be saved.
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We can have this translation of these words. They can be interchangeable. In fact, this is one of the issues where the
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Judas text becomes a little tricky because in the King James Version, Matthew 27, 2, the word repentance shows up there.
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It doesn't show up that way in some of the newer translations. A Christian has the job to call other
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Christians to repentance. That's what we do as Christians. We call people to repentance, either repentance unto salvation, or if they're brothers and sisters in Christ, we still call them unto repentance.
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But we call them unto a change, a change of mind, a change of actions, and a change of heart.
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But that's the order that it takes place in within Christians. We have, first, a change of mind. We have to be informed by the
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Scriptures. The Holy Spirit applies that new knowledge that we have, which leads to a change of actions.
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And then, subsequent to that, leads to a change of heart. We don't let our heart be our guide.
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We don't let our heart decide what we're going to do and not do. We change our actions. We return based on what we know, and what we know is gotten by the
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Scriptures. And what we get from the Scriptures is applied to our minds through the work of the
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Spirit. There are many people who know the Scriptures. I was talking to someone just the other day about whether or not it's appropriate to use liberal commentaries.
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Here are some of the liberal commentaries, and these guys go in, and the Greek and the Hebrew, and dissect these things six ways from Sunday, and evaluate all these philosophies over time.
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We can argue whether there may or may not be any value in that. But let me just say this, that these people are unregenerate.
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They read the text and, on its face, have some understanding of it.
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But yet, they're blind to it. The Spirit hasn't changed their mind that this is, in fact, true.
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And it certainly hasn't led to a change of actions, because most of these people are on a task of destroying
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Christianity. So many teachers, such as J.
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Adams. Does that right name ring a bell to anybody? Who knows who J. Adams is? Maybe half.
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So J. Adams, he's sort of the godfather of modern biblical counseling.
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He was involved with Westminster Seminary back in the 60s and 70s, and up until recently.
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And many of the things that deal with counseling these days comes from either
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J. Adams directly or his offspring. But good biblical stuff comes from him for the most part.
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And he says this about repentance, that repentance is to rethink one's behavior, attitudes, and beliefs, coming to a different opinion or viewpoint.
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And then he would go on to say that yields a change of action. And so repentance, he would say, without a change of behavior, is a false repentance.
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That goes to your question earlier about my friend who continues in a certain sin.
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If there is not a change, if there is not a turning from that, then we can say that there was not true biblical repentance.
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Listen to what Paul says in Acts 26. Paul is talking about his desire for people who preach the word.
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He says this, they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.
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So it's not just hating your sin, perhaps being remorseful over your sin, calling out to God, but it must be performing a deed or changing a behavior in order for it to be biblical repentance.
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You know, I just can't stand this idea of I've given this sin to God, I've repented of it, and I'm just waiting for God to take it away from me.
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This is not biblical thinking. Acts 26, 19 to 20.
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So we have a biblical model for preaching, which leads to the spirit convicting hearts and minds, which yields a change in actions.
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Daniel? In other words, are you saying that after repentance whether there should be a 100 % change?
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Yeah, and this goes to the issue of the flesh and ongoing sin in our life, the mortification of sin.
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This repentance, this is a daily effort for Christians. We may not make huge marathon -type leaps of change, but there needs to be some intentional change.
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You can't just say, I'm repentant, and there'd be zero change in that action. It's like the guy who struggles with pornography, this is a true story, and he goes to these nightclubs and this kind of thing, and someone's helping him work through these issues, and he says,
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I keep falling in this area. And they go in to meet him at his apartment, and he lives directly above an apartment of a strip club underneath him.
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And they say, well, maybe we need to move your location of your house. There needs to be an action taken if this repentance is in fact true.
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Those temptations can be so much too much to bear. Yes, right.
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I think it's the distinction between whether it be a fall into sin versus a lifestyle that characterizes the person.
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If we're characterized by our sin, that's a sign of non -salvation.
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And if we're characterized by someone who periodically, and perhaps often, falls to a sin, but turns from that sin, doesn't desire to be identified by that sin, that could be the struggling
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Christian. But I agree with you, Charlie. So let me ask you guys this question just for discussion purposes.
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If we look at the connection between sorrow, we said we had godly sorrow and we have worldly sorrow, and we have repentance.
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Does sorrow need to accompany true biblical repentance?
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Must somebody feel sorrow, be sorrowful, to have biblical repentance?
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We talked about the word meaning to turn. There must be a change of action. We looked earlier to some of these verses about sorrow.
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Godly sorrow, Psalm 51. Ungodly sorrow, Judas, the rich young ruler. So does sorrow have to accompany repentance?
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Can you have repentance and not have sorrow? Steve? We say sorrow so often we jump to a feeling that there often is, don't get me wrong, there often is an invading force,
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I mean, egoist emotional about it. Foremost, it is a mental acknowledgment that I have offended
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God. That's the hallmark of godly sorrow, is that I'm not concerned with what
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I did in Passoeba, I'm not concerned with offended a holy
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God. And therefore, I have to confess that,
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I have to beg his forgiveness, I have to repent, and go another way.
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And there has to be an action that accompanies that. So the issue is, do we have to feel that?
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Well, how bad would you have to feel before you, is there a threshold that we have to feel that?
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No, it's a mental attitude first and foremost. And probably you'll get something with an emotional response as well.
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But the emotional response is not first and foremost. Mm -hmm. Good. Any other thoughts?
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Mark? I agree, it's about the relationship. Mm -hmm.
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Good. Yes, Leo. Good. Steve?
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Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
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Yeah, good. And I'll just add a couple of opinions from other writers. So I think
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J. Adams would probably affirm what Pastor Lewis said, that sorrow is more your recognition through your being informed by the word of your violation against God.
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Adams would say that if there was this recognition and this change, that not necessarily would feelings of sorrow be accompanied by that, but that often they would be.
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But then you have other people, such as Lewis Berkhoff and John MacArthur, who had written on this subject, and they have said that since repentance is part of salvation, and salvation is all of God, Ephesians 2, 8, and 10, that God's work in us is a complete and 100 % change, that everything about us is gone from the old to the new, and that part of that is our emotional element, and so that we can't leave our emotional element over here and the rest of us can move on in a repentant life and attitude.
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So there's a little bit of disagreement, perhaps, on the issue, and I think that if you don't feel sorrow,
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I don't think that's something that you need to lose sleep over, but it's something worth evaluating.
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I think that it's a valid thing to consider. But we must be informed by the
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Scriptures, because sometimes we just kind of go on these little trips in our mind, and we realize that our sorrow is really against somebody else, or it's getting introspected and this kind of thing, but I think that it's worthy of evaluation.
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So I'll leave it at that. I don't want to say definitively whether or not sorrow...
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I think we could say that sorrow must accompany repentance, but then when you talk about sorrow, does it have to be a total feelings -oriented sorrow or more of a recognition sorrow with respect to God?
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That must be present, for sure. Did that make sense, or did I just ramble and confuse you?
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So in terms of the practical steps of repentance, 2 Corinthians 7 .10,
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we talked about godly grief will lead to repentance. So we have information given through the
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Word, 2 Timothy 3 .16. It informs us, the
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Holy Spirit applies it to us. Our response to that is, according to Adams, there would be four steps.
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One would be a confession of your sin to God and others. Then seeking forgiveness for that sin.
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Then the forsaking or turning from that sin. So we have first, after you recognize it, you confess it, you seek forgiveness for it, forsake it, and then begin your alternative way of life that is pleasing to God.
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So you correct it at the end. So you have to, after you hear it, you confess it to God, you ask for forgiveness for it again.
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You recognize that you hate that way and love this way, and then you take actions to that end.
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So just some practical pointers as to how we can practice that in our life and have a lifestyle of repentance.
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Because if you're in this room and you're not a Christian and you're hearing this message, you need the repentance unto salvation.
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You need to realize that your whole life has been a sin against God and that you need to repent of that life and call out to God for repentance.
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If you are a Christian, which is going to be most people in this room, then we need to be living a life of mortification of sin, daily repenting to God.
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And some practical principles as we close to think about is that, and I'm just going to list them off and you can write some of these down.
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They're helpful. Daily and slowly meditating on the gospel. We need to consider every day what
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God has done for us and on our behalf. Consider our union with him daily.
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Make repentance our lifestyle. This isn't something we do once a week when we remember it or when we've done a really bad sin.
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This should be part of our everyday life, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. We want to consider what the
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Bible says about radical amputation, Matthew 5 .29. If something is causing us to sin, we need to radically cut that off.
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We need to separate ourselves from it. This would be the guy who needs to move out of that apartment. This could be the person who needs to disconnect their
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Internet connection. This could be the person that maybe they need to avoid talking to certain people at the office.
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I don't know what it is. It's different for everybody depending on your situation. Make no provisions for your flesh,
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Romans 13 .14. Don't leave yourself these temptations as you're putting off sin and putting on Christ.
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Focus on pursuing knowledge and putting on the Lord Christ. Sorry, focus on pursuing, knowing, and putting on the
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Lord Christ. Focus on, rather than becoming introspective, let's focus on the one another's of Scripture.
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There are 35 one another's, especially found in Galatians 6. We can be diligent and fervent in the
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Spirit as we go about all these tasks. And maintain a balanced outlook of our walk with life,
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Revelation 2 and 3. So with Christ as the center, the
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Word as our informer, the Spirit as our convictor, we can have some limited victory over sin in our life on this earth.
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We will not have it perfectly until we're in heaven. But we must repent often.
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And I would suggest a book like this to consider.
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A prayer book like this one. I don't know of a lot of other good ones. But in closing,
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I will close us with a prayer from the Valley of Vision. This is another prayer to repentance.
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Let's go to the Lord. O Lord, bend our hands and cut them off.
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For we have often struck Thee with a wayward will, when these fingers should embrace Thee by faith.
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We are not yet weaned from all created glory, honor, wisdom, and esteem of others.
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For we have a secret motive to eye my name in all that we do. Let us not only speak the word sin, but see the thing itself.
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Give us to view a discovered sinfulness, to know that though our sins are crucified, they are never wholly mortified.
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Hatred, malice, ill will, vain glory that hungers for and hunts after man's approval and applause are all crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in our sinful hearts.
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O our crucified but never wholly mortified sinfulness! O our lifelong damage and daily shame!
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O our indwelling and besetting sins! O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart!
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Destroy, O God, the dark guest within, whose hidden presence makes our life a hell.
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That Thou hast not left us here without grace, the cross still stands and meets our needs in the deepest straits of the soul.
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I thank Thee that Thy remembrance of it is like David's sight of Goliath's sword, which preached forth
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Thy deliverance. The memory of our great sins, our many temptations, our falls, bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of Thy great help, of Thy support from heaven, of the great grace that saves such a wretch as we are.
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There is no treasure so wonderful as that continuous experience of Thy grace toward us, which alone can subdue the risings of sin within.