Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] There was once a king who loved God and failed miserably.
[00:00:22] And if you've been around the church for any amount of time, or if you paid attention a second ago, as Braden read the psalm, you know that this is King David. King David loved God.
[00:00:32] He loved his Word, and he failed miserably.
[00:00:36] And the story goes, if you're not familiar with that, King David, on a particular day in the middle of the afternoon, sees a woman bathing on the roof.
[00:00:44] This woman's married.
[00:00:46] David sends his men, as the king of Israel sends his men to take the woman, bring her to himself so that he can have her.
[00:00:55] David lies with the woman.
[00:00:57] She becomes pregnant.
[00:00:59] And then, rather than turning from his evil ways in that particular moment, David doubles down and he has her husband killed in order to try to hide his sin.
[00:01:10] But God is relentless in his pursuit of our hearts.
[00:01:13] And so God calls up a prophet named Nathan, one of David's friends, to come in and confront the king over this particular sin. Nathan confronts King David, and David, in a moment of the grace of God just intersecting with his life, says, I have sinned against the Lord. And then he pins Psalm 51, which probably, arguably, is the most robust illustration of what repentance is in the entire Bible. David was named a man after God's own heart, not because David had it all together, but because of what verse 17 in Psalm 51 says. A broken and contrite heart. Oh, God you will not despise. Why is that?
[00:01:55] Is that because God just loves for us to be broken, to show us how, you know, how insignificant we are?
[00:02:04] No, it's because God draws near to the brokenhearted.
[00:02:10] So David repents. He shows us what repentance looks like in Psalm 51. And as we get to Jonah chapter three today, which will kind of highlight where we've been over the last couple of weeks, Pastor Matt preached a great sermon on repentance last week. So consider this just kind of like the second side to the same coin. So, sermon B in this kind of discussion on the topic of repentance. But, man, why? Why is this idea of repentance so important? So just to define a term before we really dig into it, in the text, the word repentance just means to change one's mind. It means to turn.
[00:02:50] As Pastor Matt said last week, it's a turning from sin or turning from living for yourself, living as if you are the God of the universe.
[00:03:00] And by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit and the changing of one's mind, it's a turning from that and a turning to Jesus by faith. So consider repentance and faith to be two sides of the same coin. They both go together. Anytime the Bible talks about repentance, it assumes faith. And anytime the Bible talks about faith, it assumes repentance. Any it's not one or the other.
[00:03:23] And so why is repentance such a big deal? Martin Luther said when he nailed his 95 theses, the first theses on the door of Wittenberg was that all of the Christian life is one of repentance.
[00:03:40] All of the Christian life is one of repentance. I think for us in our particular context, in our particular time, there's some reality that we just have to work through as it pertains to this word. Many of us, if I say the word repentance, probably carry a negative connotation of it in your mind.
[00:03:58] I do. Even often sometimes when I think about this idea, I think about somebody holding a sign in front of a bar or something like that telling everybody to repent, they're gonna go to hell. That's just kind of the picture that comes to mind when we think about repentance. So some of us do not live lives of repentance as followers of Jesus because we don't understand it. We just don't understand what repentance actually is. We think it's one thing, when really it isn't. It's something else entirely.
[00:04:28] Some of us in the room, Christian or not, maybe fail to accept repentance. We know what it is, but we don't want to accept it. Because in order to accept what repentance actually is, you and I have to come face to face with the reality that we're broken.
[00:04:45] And we don't like to admit that we're broken.
[00:04:49] We want to appear better than we are. We also live in a very overly therapeutic culture. So let me say this with a caveat.
[00:04:58] My life has been drastically changed through biblical counseling and even some forms of therapy. Some of my dear brothers and sisters are therapists and biblical counselors, and we want to start a ministry of biblical counseling here at Redemption Hill. So not at all opposed to. To the gift of biblical counseling and even some forms of therapy that God has given us in his common grace. But we do live in a culture, and I think this is important for us to know and be aware of and observant of. We do live in an overly therapeutic culture, don't we?
[00:05:26] And an overly therapeutic culture says this. It says that anytime you see a mass shooting on the News. What is typically the cause of motive?
[00:05:35] Mental illness, Circumstantial issues.
[00:05:38] What word do you never hear on tv?
[00:05:41] Sin.
[00:05:44] You don't hear that word personal sin, original sin.
[00:05:50] That's an overly therapeutic culture. So some of us, even though we have an idea of what the Bible has to say about repentance in the Christian life, some of us understand it, but we don't accept it.
[00:06:03] And so all of the things that we do that are missing the mark, so to speak. That's how the Bible defines the word sin, that are missing the mark of God's original plan for our life, that are missing the mark of his word, whatever it is, are the cause of something else done to us, whether it's something that we've experienced in our past or something in our circumstances.
[00:06:23] And so we fail to accept the reality of personal sin.
[00:06:30] And then some of us just. Even though we understand sin and we accept what it is, we fail to act upon it. And the Bible calls this worldly sorrow. The point behind all of these kinds of things is to say, and I'm going to quote Thomas Watson, who's an old Puritan, a lot this morning, but one of the quotes from Watson, he says, sin is the Trojan horse to most of our problems in life.
[00:06:56] Okay, if you can imagine the picture of the Trojan horse coming in, and once the doors open on the side of the Trojan horse, all of these soldiers come marching out to attack the place. Like, that's. Sin is like the Trojan horse to many of the problems in our life, the horizontal problems in our life, the relational fracture and disunity that we experience, and the bitterness and the resentment and all of these kinds of things, the vertical reality of our life. Most importantly, some of us in the room are not Christians. You've never repented.
[00:07:28] You've never turned from your sin and turned to Jesus, trusting him by faith to be your Savior and Lord. And some of us as Christians who have been made alive by the Spirit are walking in unrepentant sin.
[00:07:39] And what Watson wants to communicate is that sin is like the Trojan horse to many of these problems. And so repentance is the conduit, is the means of grace that God has given us to combat the sin that Jesus has already defeated for us.
[00:07:56] Repentance is the Christian life.
[00:07:59] This is what it means, by and large, to follow Jesus is to live a life of repentance, of turning from indwelling sin, knowing that Christ, if you're a believer, has already defeated it by the power of the Holy Spirit, turning from indwelling sin, turning back to Jesus by faith, over and over and over again in obedience to Jesus.
[00:08:27] This is what repentance is. This is why it's important. But I want to talk to you this morning about what genuine repentance is, okay? Because there is such a thing as false repentance. There's genuine repentance. There's false repentance. So I want you to consider for just a moment, and I want to spend, like, 30 seconds on this, Okay? I want you to consider for a moment your favorite dessert, okay? Just consider it. Picture it in your mind, your favorite dessert. Okay? Mine is sopapilla cheesecake. Sopapia cheesecake is delicious. It's amazing. The top is coated with melted butter, and then you have brown sugar on top of that. We got a few head nods. It's amazing.
[00:09:00] If I replaced cream cheese with sour cream, would it be the same?
[00:09:07] Would not be the same.
[00:09:09] Okay, if I replaced the butter that's melted on the top of the dessert with applesauce, would it be the same?
[00:09:14] That'd be disgusting. It'd be an entirely different thing. So it is with repentance.
[00:09:19] We can't just use that word because we know we're supposed to use it.
[00:09:24] And so what is genuine repentance? Let's look at the text together.
[00:09:31] Chapter three, verse six says the Word reached the King of Nineveh. Okay, what word?
[00:09:38] This is the word of the Lord through Jonah. Jonah, as Pastor Matt preached last week, went to Nineveh and preached this message. As Matt said, probably the shortest sermon ever preached. Jonah says this yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
[00:09:55] That's it. That's the sermon. In 40 days, your city's gonna be overthrown.
[00:10:00] God's going to do in you what he did in Sodom and Gomorrah in 40 days.
[00:10:05] And it says in verse five of chapter three, the people of Nineveh believed God. That's a miracle.
[00:10:12] That's an absolute. This is actual revival.
[00:10:16] They didn't have a fancy worship band.
[00:10:18] They didn't have lights and fog machines and all these various things to try to manipulate emotions.
[00:10:26] The preached word, followed by the power of the Spirit, led to belief in God.
[00:10:32] They believed God. They called for a fast and they put on sackcloth. From the greatest of them to the least of them. And today we get a snapshot of the greatest of them, the King himself, the King of Nineveh. What did the King of Nineveh do when he heard this message?
[00:10:49] In 40 days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. This is what he did. He arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh. And here's the proclamation.
[00:11:07] By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. And let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce to anger, from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish. All right, let's just kind of break this down a little bit. First of all, the king arose. We've talked about how this word arise appears all throughout the book of Jonah. It's a bit of a theme. God calls Jonah in chapter one, his prophet. I want you to arise, and I want you to go to Nineveh, okay? The place filled with the people that you hate, the people that have oppressed you and done you wrong and done evil against you. And my people go to them and tell them, in 40 days, I'm gonna overthrow their city. And so Jonah arises. But he doesn't arise in obedience to God. He arises in disobedience to God. He boards a ship headed in the opposite direction to a place called Tarshish. And while he's on the ship, God relentlessly pursues Jonah. But not just Jonah. He pursues the pagan sailors on the boat. And so he sends this amazing storm, and there's all this chaos. And Jonah's like, hey, throw me overboard. Not in genuine repentance, by the way, but he's like, throw me overboard. I'm the reason that the storm, that God sent the storm. So they pick him up, they hurl him over, and then God does this just insane thing by sending a giant fish or whale or whatever to swallow up Jonah. And then Jonah's in the belly of the fish for three days.
[00:12:36] And while in the belly of the fish, Jonah prays this prayer to God that's at least half repentant, where he acknowledges that God is the God of salvation and that he's run away from God. And he cries out to God. And so God, in grace and in compassion, commands the fish to spit Jonah up out onto dry land, giving him a second chance. As Matt last week, again, God is a God of second chances. Praise God, that that's who he is.
[00:13:01] And so the fish spits Jonah up onto Dry land. Jonah gets on the land and he walks to Nineveh in obedience to God this time. And he calls out against the city, and the people repent.
[00:13:15] They recognize their evil way and they call out to God. Now we don't know what's gonna happen yet. We don't know what God's gonna do, how he's gonna respond. He didn't promise, hey, in 40 days, I'm going to overthrow this. Unless he just said, I'm going to overthrow it. Okay, so Jonah preaches. The people cry out to God. It says that they believe God, and then the king himself arises, but he arises not in self exaltation. He arises in self humiliation. It says that he stands up from his throne and he walks over and he sits in ashes.
[00:13:53] This is, as the Puritans would say, that the valley has become his place of true vision. He's actually seeing rightly for the first time. He's not really the king of the universe. There is a king of the universe, and he's now lowering himself in submission to that king.
[00:14:11] And so he takes himself off of the throne, off of his throne, and he lowers himself and he sits in ashes. And. And then he issues a command that all of Nineveh, including the animals, not eat or drink anything, but do one thing, cry out to God, pleading for mercy in the hopes that God might be merciful and not give them what they deserve. So the king of Nineveh. Nineveh recognized something that I think for you and I, if we're not careful, we'll lose sight of. And it's the holiness of God.
[00:14:45] We love the love of God, and we should. The love of God is fantastic, isn't it?
[00:14:50] It's nothing like the steadfast love of God, the holiness of God.
[00:14:57] When the angels fly around the throne of God in heaven, Isaiah says that they have six wings, and with two of their wings they cover their eyes as to not look at God, and they cry out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
[00:15:18] So when Isaiah encounters the holiness of God, he doesn't say, God, thank you for all of these things, and et cetera. He doesn't say, God, this is what I'm going to do for you. He says, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. This is Isaiah's first.
[00:15:34] This is what happens when creatures come face to face with their Maker. He's holy.
[00:15:43] And so the people of Nineveh get on their knees. The king of Nineveh takes Himself off of his throne of power and control and prestige.
[00:15:54] And he lowers himself by sitting on an ash heap, covering himself in sackcloth. And he commands all the peoples and all the animals of the city to be silent, to turn from their evil ways, and then to cry out to God.
[00:16:08] So it's a very sobering scene, but I think it gives us a really good illustration of what this word repentance looks like. Not just what it means to turn from sin and turn to Christ, but what it looks like in the moment when we're confronted with our sin. Thomas Watson, again Puritan, wrote a really helpful book called Repentance, the Doctrine of Repentance that I would encourage you to read if you've never read it. It's a classic. It's a really helpful book.
[00:16:40] But he gives six ingredients to genuine repentance. And I want to walk through those with you, and I'm gonna put them up on the screen one by one. Would encourage you to write them down. If you're not a note taker, you should be one today.
[00:16:51] So get a pen out, something like that. And we're just gonna walk through each of these ingredients of genuine repentance. And the point of this, by the way?
[00:17:01] Well, I'll come back to this in a little bit.
[00:17:03] I think it's really, really good. It's uncomfortable for us to do this, to slow down long enough and really dissect repentance. We want to get really quickly too. But if you repent, you're forgiven, and that's a wonderful thing. And we'll get there in just a moment.
[00:17:15] But I've shared with you guys the story of when I broke my nose. I also broke my hand when I was a kid in soccer practice. And it wasn't until I went into the hospital that which was across the street from where I fell, Sovereign providentially went to the hospital, looked down at my hand, and saw the wound that I cried out for help. Okay? So it's really. It's good for us to slow down and really think through this in an unhurried way. Okay, so what are the six ingredients of true repentance that I think we see illustrated in the King of Nineveh? Number one is the sight of sin.
[00:17:52] The sight of sin.
[00:17:56] The sight of sin simply means that you and I understand the sinfulness of sin.
[00:18:04] Does this make sense?
[00:18:07] The site of sin is a matter of understanding. It's a matter of mental understanding that you've come to understand not just that you're a sinner, but what Sin is that sin doesn't just have horizontal effects on our human to human relationships, but sin is actually treason against God.
[00:18:34] Sin is exceedingly sinful. Not to argue circularly.
[00:18:39] Acts 26:18.
[00:18:42] And speaking of the Apostle Paul says that this is his ministry is to open their eyes. Talking about the Gentiles so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins. And a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me is what Jesus says. It's to open their eyes.
[00:19:10] You and I can't really understand what repentance means, what it means to turn from sin into Jesus if our eyes are not opened. And this is only something the Holy Spirit of God can do.
[00:19:22] Sin is so sinful that you and I will not do it on our own, friends.
[00:19:26] Did you know that?
[00:19:29] We will not turn from our sin on our own because we love it too much.
[00:19:35] So I became a Christian in college and I say this all the time when I share my story. Like, I was miserable and all of what I was doing thinking I was finding fulfillment in, was starting to feel like vanity to me and all of those kinds of things. But still there was too much darkness in my heart for me on my own to turn to Jesus. I needed the Holy Spirit to do that.
[00:20:00] And so the book of Acts says that repentance is a gift, the Holy Spirit opening our eyes, that we would see sin for what it is.
[00:20:09] Treason against the God of the universe.
[00:20:12] The Trojan horse of our problems is sin.
[00:20:17] The second ingredient for genuine repentance is sorrow for sin.
[00:20:25] Sorrow for sin. Psalm 38:18.
[00:20:27] David says, I confess my iniquity. I. I am troubled by my sin.
[00:20:35] So I want you to consider this question.
[00:20:38] I know today's a little bit heavier. I want you to consider this.
[00:20:42] What troubles you more?
[00:20:45] The sins of others or your own?
[00:20:52] The sins of the culture or your own?
[00:20:59] The sins of your children or your own.
[00:21:04] I was confronted with that last night where the Spirit just very graciously kind of pulled me aside in a moment of anger toward my kid.
[00:21:14] Was like, brad, right now you're the problem.
[00:21:23] What troubles you more?
[00:21:26] The culture war on the outside.
[00:21:28] Not to say it's irrelevant. It's not.
[00:21:31] Or the war between the Spirit of God and your flesh.
[00:21:39] What troubles us this is sorrow for sin.
[00:21:47] Number three is confession of sin.
[00:21:52] So we have sight of sin. The Holy Spirit has revealed to us that we are sinners in need of a Savior. That's led to sorrow for sin over that sin. And then the third is confession of sin. This is what we do with our mouth, where we confess with our mouth. I have sinned, I've sinned, not.
[00:22:15] Well, if you wouldn't have done this, I wouldn't have said this.
[00:22:18] Or if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have done this. Or if I weren't traumatized when I was a kid, I wouldn't have done this. Or whatever the case, I'm not belittling any of those things, but it's getting to a point where you and I can honestly say, I was wrong, I was wrong, I did that, I raised my voice in that moment because that's really what I wanted to do.
[00:22:39] How often do we say, I didn't mean to say that, yes, you did, that's why you said it.
[00:22:46] And hey man, I'm like, I wish I could preach from down here. To lose the illusion of the stage because I'm right here with you.
[00:22:52] Daily struggles.
[00:22:55] You did it because you wanted to do it. You said it because you wanted to say it.
[00:23:00] And so confession of sin is an honest acknowledgement when you're wrong.
[00:23:07] And gosh, the Bible is just littered with amazing, wonderful, beautiful promises for those who confess their sin. 1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he that being Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The work of Christ on the cross is so big and so sufficient that God would be unjust to condemn you if you are in Christ by faith. Did you know that if you're a believer in Jesus, if you've been united to Jesus by grace through faith, God would be unjust to condemn you because your condemnation has already been taken and put onto another.
[00:23:50] And so John says, inspired by the Holy Spirit, you're free to confess your sin because you're not under condemnation anymore.
[00:23:59] And as we confess our sin, especially to one another, confess our sin to God, we confess our sin to one another. And I hope that by the grace of God, we continue to grow to be a transparent, honest, grace filled community where that's safe to do. Here.
[00:24:17] We want to be people who, like, we say this a lot. We want to be people who, if somebody hands you a sword, that is their confession, that they can trust you to do the right thing with it and not stab them with it.
[00:24:30] That happens by us resolving because of what Christ has done already to confess our sins, knowing that when we do so, we don't just know that we've been forgiven, we get to experience it.
[00:24:42] You get to experience your forgiveness as we confess our sin.
[00:24:46] That's the third ingredient of genuine repentance is confession of sin. Where there's no confession of sin, there is no repentance.
[00:24:59] And side note on that as well. We're going to go for a while today, but it's been three weeks since I preached, so we're just going to go.
[00:25:07] Two kinds of confession, okay? There's a fatalistic kind of confession by which you and I confess to God. But really in the back of our mind, we know the whole time that we're going to do it again.
[00:25:18] So, God, I'm sorry I yelled, please forgive me. And that might be earnest, but really in the back of our mind, what we're thinking is, I know I'm going to do it again tomorrow.
[00:25:29] That's one kind. It's not the kind of confession that the Bible talks about.
[00:25:34] The New Testament talks about Holy Spirit empowered, fighting a confession of sin by which we articulate with our mouth, I have sinned against the Lord. And by the power of the Spirit, we resolve to fight the thing.
[00:25:49] So maybe that's telling your brothers or telling your sisters in community, hey, I did this again, and I need to confess this sin, and I need you guys to help me fight it.
[00:25:59] I'm going to commit to bringing it up again, keeping it in the light. I need you to commit to asking me about it. We fight our sin by bringing it to the light again. That sin has already been crucified by Jesus. Praise God for that. No condemnation for those who are in Christ. And so now we can fight it together by the power of the Spirit.
[00:26:17] That's confession number four is shame for sin. This is a relatively controversial one for us today, but it wasn't for Thomas Watson back in the day.
[00:26:28] Because you and I live in a very shame honor culture.
[00:26:33] And so we hate shame.
[00:26:35] We say all the time, like, Jesus died for your shame.
[00:26:38] Which I think is kind of a.
[00:26:40] I don't know, it's kind of a strange thing to say, like, he died for your sin and shame that is a result of that. Sin is taken away as you and I walk with Jesus. But here's my caution against this. And this is what Watson wants to teach us through this is the tax collector felt shame.
[00:27:01] So when the tax collector went before God and he beat his breast and he wouldn't look up into heaven, that's shame.
[00:27:07] There's a kind of shame that's actually godly. There's a kind of ungodly Shame. And there's a kind of godly shame when you and I do something shameful. Shame is an appropriate response to that. Friends.
[00:27:20] The ungodly shame is that deeply rooted belief, especially if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, that deeply rooted belief that you haven't just done wrong, but you are wrong.
[00:27:32] And so it actually leads you away from your gospel identity.
[00:27:36] That's ungodly shame.
[00:27:38] Jesus is.
[00:27:40] When Jesus died on the cross, that shame was defeated. Does that make sense, the distinction between those two things? But there is a kind of godly shame where when you and I sin and we experience shame from it, that's an appropriate response. It's just a matter of if you go all the way back to the garden in Genesis chapter three, and you look at how Adam and Eve tried to resolve their shame, they built fig leaves for themselves, okay? So some of us in our moments of shame after sin are going to build fig leaves for ourself, and we're going to try to work harder and do better next time and all those things.
[00:28:14] That's a wrong way to deal with our shame. Or we're going to turn to Jesus and remember that Jesus has already covered us in his righteousness.
[00:28:23] So shame in moments of sin could and do provide and a wonderful opportunity for us to turn to Jesus again in the midst of that shame, remembering what he's done for us on the cross. Number five is hatred for sin.
[00:28:38] Hatred for sin.
[00:28:41] The entirety of our lives, friends, is lived out of that which you and I treasure.
[00:28:46] So hence the VBS theme for this week.
[00:28:49] Jesus says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So the thing that you love the most, the thing that you treasure the most and that I treasure the most, man essentially runs our life.
[00:29:02] That's why Augustine said way back in the 4th century that it's not just that you and I need to have modified behavior, it's that you and I need reordered loves.
[00:29:12] We need our loves reordered because the thing or the person that we love the most or treasure the most will be the thing that runs much of our life. Jesus says in Revelation 2, verse 4, nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
[00:29:31] You've left your first love.
[00:29:34] So I want us to consider this morning, is it possible that the lack of fight in some of us over our sin, whether you're a Christian and it's a besetting sin, something that you just find yourself running back to, falling to over and over and over again, or if you're not.
[00:29:53] But that our lack of fight in some of this is due to the fact that if we're honest, we just love it too much to let it go.
[00:30:03] So true repentance will always be accompanied by hatred for sin.
[00:30:10] I was thinking about this this week as well, but when my son was diagnosed with epilepsy, many of you know this. For the first few weeks we were in and out of ER icu, It was a really, really difficult time. And there was one particular day where they cannot get him to wake up. And so he's having seizures, he's unconscious, and got like 15 nurses in the room trying to do different things and poking him with needles, and it was just terrible.
[00:30:34] And we felt very hopeless in that moment.
[00:30:37] And then the neurosurgeon walked in, and our neurosurgeon was just a godsend for us.
[00:30:42] We came to realize in moments like that, throughout that duration of our life, that when the neurosurgeon walked in, he was very wanted in that moment because we were in a place of desperation. My point in saying all this is to say, friends, if you and I don't hate our sin, we'll never experience the sweetness of the Savior.
[00:30:59] Jesus said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I came to call sinners. Real ones, not minor ones, not ones that just kind of mess up here and there. Like, I came to call really broken people because the people who are well have no need of a physician. Jesus says, it's the people who are sick and know they're sick and they hate their sickness.
[00:31:24] Like, if that's you and you're like, I don't know if I'm a Christian because I just keep sinning and I hate it. I just want to encourage you to praise God for that. The reason you hate sin is because the Spirit of God abides in you.
[00:31:35] You wouldn't hate it otherwise.
[00:31:37] You might hate the consequences of it, but you wouldn't hate sin.
[00:31:43] You hate sin because the Spirit of God lives in you.
[00:31:46] And the promise of God is that he's going to complete the work that he began in you.
[00:31:50] And that in the midst of the battle, there's no condemnation for you because Christ has already taken it on your behalf.
[00:31:58] But do you hate your sin? Let's fight it together.
[00:32:03] Let's wage war against it together by the power of the Spirit. Don't be complicit in it. Let's not be a people at Redemption Hill.
[00:32:10] Those of us who are Christians who coddle our sin or just kind of Give into it.
[00:32:18] Let's not be that.
[00:32:20] Let's fight it together, because Jesus has already won. We are fighting from victory, and we have the Holy Spirit, who's the guarantee of our inheritance to come, and the one who is our power and our means, and the person of God who is the means out of any and every temptation.
[00:32:39] And then the final point that Watson makes is turning from sin.
[00:32:45] So we can have all of these things. Hatred for sin, sorrow for sin, shame for sin, sight of sin. We can have all of these things and not have this one thing and not understand genuine repentance. Genuine repentance always involves a turning from sin.
[00:33:02] Turning from sin. As if any of you who have ever visited a foreign country before, okay, you step off the plane and you get into that country. And at some point, because you're all here today in Fort Worth, again, you stepped on the plane and you came back to your home country. That's the picture of turning that the Bible gives. Put off the old man. Ephesians 4 says, by the power of the Spirit, he's already been crucified.
[00:33:24] She's already been crucified in Jesus. And put on the new.
[00:33:29] Leave behind the old country and walk in the new. You're a citizen of a new kingdom. Now, that's the idea of turning Acts 3:20 promises. This says, repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.
[00:33:45] That times of refreshing, at times of refreshing may come from the Lord.
[00:33:55] That's the result of repentance is refreshing from the Lord. Friends, it isn't enough to simply understand repentance.
[00:34:02] It isn't enough to merely accept what I'm saying about repentance. If you do, we must, by the power of the Spirit, act upon what we know.
[00:34:14] Luke 13:1 5 gives us this just amazing parallel between the book of Jonah, going back to the book of Jonah, between the book of Jonah and the time of Jesus as he's talking to the religious leaders of the day, and they want to see him perform a sign, like, show us a sign so that we know you are who you say you are. Though they wouldn't have believed even after seeing a sign. And Jesus says this. This is verses 1 through 5. He says there were some present at the very time who told him, I'm sorry, this is a different verse. I'm sorry.
[00:34:47] Jesus says that something greater than Jonah is here is what he tells the Pharisees, referring to himself. He says, I'm not gonna give you a sign. What I am gonna give you is the Sign of Jonah, who is three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. So the Son of Man himself will be three days and three nights in the earth until he is raised into newness of life by the power of God. This is the means by which God is going to offer forgiveness, as we're going to see in a moment. But before we do that, I want to talk to you for just a moment about the cost of non repentance. So we've talked about defining what genuine repentance is. We've got six ingredients of genuine repentance. Can't take any of them out. They're all necessary, they're all vital.
[00:35:28] The cost of non repentance, though, is always going to be much greater than the cost of repentance.
[00:35:34] The cost of non repentance will always be much greater than the cost of repentance. This is what Jesus says in Luke 13:1 5, says there were some present at that very time who told him. Jesus, about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered them. Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?
[00:35:55] No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
[00:36:00] Or those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they are worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Jesus is very sobering when he talks about the necessity of repentance, friends.
[00:36:18] He says, if you do not repent, you will perish.
[00:36:24] The Psalms talk about this picture of God whetting his sword on the day of judgment.
[00:36:32] And here's the thing. There's a part of all of us, whether you're a Christian or not, who desires justice.
[00:36:39] That desire of justice has been put within you by God who created you. That's why you have it. That's why you care that evil exists and good exists, and.
[00:36:49] And one day that evil will be taken care of. It will be eradicated. That justice will happen.
[00:36:54] What we don't like is when it pertains to us and the justice that's due our sins.
[00:37:02] And so Jesus is warning these followers.
[00:37:07] He's saying, listen, friends, if you do not repent, you will perish.
[00:37:13] Your good works won't save you.
[00:37:15] Your tithe won't save you.
[00:37:17] Your church attendance won't save you. Your Bible knowledge won't save you, because you're not as bad as that other guy won't save you if you do not repent, you will perish.
[00:37:30] Repentance is absolutely necessary. But here's the thing. Repentance is not the point.
[00:37:37] Repentance is a road by which we get to the point.
[00:37:43] Who's the one that we repent to?
[00:37:48] When the Bible talks about how you and I live lives of repentance, it doesn't encourage us to focus on the repentance itself, but on the one to whom we're repenting to.
[00:38:01] Who is this one that we're repenting to? Well, look at how God responds to the ninevites in verse 10.
[00:38:08] Okay, the ninevites, the king of Nineveh says, who knows? Okay, fast, cry out to God. Turn from your evil ways. Turn to God. And who knows this God, whom I don't know, might be merciful. But what do you and I know, friends?
[00:38:27] What a wonderful gift to be on this side of redemptive history, to have a Bible that tells us of the character of the God to whom they're repenting. To verse 10.
[00:38:40] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented.
[00:38:45] He relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
[00:38:51] That word relent is a really interesting word. It could also mean repent or one translation. Has God changed His mind? That's odd. That's an odd thing to say. Just to be very clear, God doesn't change his mind in the way that you and I think about changing our mind.
[00:39:05] Nor does God repent in the way that you and I have just discussed repentance, because God has no evil to repent from.
[00:39:13] So if you look at the two Hebrew words, one describing the Ninevites repentance and one describing God relenting or repenting, they're two different words.
[00:39:23] The word describing the Ninevites means to turn from evil and turn to God. That's what they did.
[00:39:30] The word describing what God does when God relents or God repents means to suffer inwardly.
[00:39:37] That's what was happening in God means to suffer inwardly. This word doesn't mean God changed his mind. And the way you and I think about changing our mind, it actually means the opposite.
[00:39:51] Here's how.
[00:39:52] When God told Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites, he said, go and tell them in 40 days their city's going to be overthrown. That was true, wasn't it?
[00:39:59] If they did not repent in 40 days, God would have overthrown their city. As Matt said last week, again, he said, hey, God. What'd you say, Matt? God keeps receipts, okay? Like, we have this in the Bible. God has done this before. He has overthrown a city before.
[00:40:13] He'll do it, okay?
[00:40:18] But he doesn't say in there anything about their repentance. What we do have, all throughout the Bible, is God keeping his promise time and time and time again that when a person humbles themself by the grace of God and turns to him by faith, he's forgiving.
[00:40:37] He's always been faithful to do that. He'll always be faithful to do that. How does God just forgive the Ninevites? Well, he doesn't just forgive the Ninevites. He forgives the Ninevites because in thousands of years, God was going to send his very Son to do for the Ninevites what they could never do for themselves.
[00:40:53] To live the life they did not live.
[00:40:56] To die on the cross in their place. Once for all, to rise from the grave victorious over sin and death.
[00:41:04] Once for all.
[00:41:07] This is how God was going to forgive the Ninevites. And this is how, friends, God forgives you and I.
[00:41:14] So I want to give you one final encouragement, going back to those of us in the room maybe who are not yet Christians.
[00:41:24] Gosh. I want you to know that every week the pastors of the church and I know many members of the church pray that when folks come into Redemption Hill and they're not yet Christians, we're just so grateful, first of all. Secondly, we're so excited to get to know you. Thirdly, we really want you to know Jesus because we know how awesome he is, how wonderful and how beautiful and how spectacular he is. We want you to know Jesus. We know how wonderful it is to be forgiven of your sins and to know that heaven is your future and heaven is your home. And so you're prayed for in that. And I do want you to hear the warning in the text, however, from Jesus, that those who continue to refuse to turn from their sin and turn to him by faith, trusting him as Savior and Lord, will perish.
[00:42:11] So, friend, why will you perish?
[00:42:14] You don't have to perish.
[00:42:18] Have a conversation.
[00:42:19] Turn to Jesus.
[00:42:22] For those of us who are Christians in the room, Luther's last words, at least written on paper, were, we are beggars, exclamation point. This is true.
[00:42:37] Hey. Luther knew that living a life of repentance, living a life as a follower of Jesus, is living at the foot of the cross.
[00:42:45] That's what it is to live As a Christian, it's to live at the foot of the cross. It's not that the longer you walk with Jesus, you get better in a way that you need Jesus less.
[00:42:54] But it's that as you and I walk with Jesus by the power of the Spirit, the cross becomes bigger and bigger and Jesus becomes more beautiful as we're more aware. I mean, I'm aware of things in my own heart now, sinful things that 10 years ago I wouldn't have even conceived of.
[00:43:11] And so, in those moments, rather than living in despair, we look again to Jesus, the better Jonah.
[00:43:21] And in looking to Jesus, the better Jonah, the source of all beauty, the source of all truth, the source of all life, who's gone before us, who laid his life down on our behalf, repentance will flow.
[00:43:33] So we don't grow in repentance by focusing on repentance. We grow in repentance by looking to Jesus, seeing the beauty of Jesus.
[00:43:43] So I want to give just a few invitations here, and then I'll pray.
[00:43:47] If you are here this morning and you are weary and you need rest, look to Christ, who alone can restore your soul.
[00:44:01] If you're here this morning and you're longing for comfort, look to Christ, who is himself the source of comfort.
[00:44:15] If you're here this morning and you find yourself failing time and time again and you're longing for a victory in this particular place, I want to encourage you to look to Christ, who overcame the world.
[00:44:28] If you're here this morning and you're lonely, friend, look to Christ, who is the friend of sinners.
[00:44:37] If you're here this morning and you know that you are a sinner and you need a savior, look to Christ, who became sin in your place, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God.
[00:44:51] If you're here and you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you desire to do the right thing. You desire to obey the word of God. You desire to grow in your love for God and your love for people.
[00:45:02] Look to the law, look to Christ.
[00:45:06] Look to Christ, who is your righteousness and obedience to the law, by the power of the Spirit is going to flow out of you.
[00:45:17] And to whoever will come this morning, look to Christ and him alone.
[00:45:21] You and I will find all that we need. Let me pray for us.
