Repentance
Notes
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Introduction
Introduction
Recap the series
In this series, we have looked at the word ‘Gospel’
The word ‘Gospel’ means “Good News”
By saying it is Good News, we are left with a few questions.
Who is the Good News for?
If the good news is not for me, then it may be good, but it has no impact on my life
What is the Good News?
If I cannot know the good news, you can tell me it is good all you want, but again, it’ll have no impact on my life
In this series, we have looked at how Jesus shared this good news with the people who came across His path.
We looked at Jesus talking with a religious leader
We looked at Jesus sharing the Good News with a sinful woman
We looked at Jesus sharing the Good News with a young, wealthy influential man
We shared how Jesus shared the good news in his stories
He told stories about planting seed in a field
He told a story about workers in a vineyard
Last week we looked at a story of a father whose son left in rebellion, but returned in humility.
In all of these stories and interactions, Jesus presented a very clear and simple Gospel.
Lord
It requires a trust to make Jesus your Lord
You are no longer the director of your life, Jesus becomes the one who directs your life
It is a surrender of your will to Him and seeing the world as He sees the world.
But to the people who felt they led their lives well, there would be no surrender, therefore, there would be no good news for them.
Savior
Jesus also brought the reality that all people are sinful and flawed.
There are not perfect people
Even the religious leaders and churchiest people were flawed.
Sinful people need a savior
A person who does not recognize their sin, will never receive salvation, because there is nothing to save them from.
God’s perspective
He loves the lost. He desires for them to be in relationship with Him
He is the King. Those who surrender to Him are in His Kingdom.
His heart breaks for the lost and dying world, like a father whose son has rebelled and walked away.
Our perspective
When we are in His Kingdom, our lives change in this world
We have direction and purpose.
We understand that we live for a greater calling than ourselves.
It doesn’t mean that our problems go away, but we have someone who brings purpose to our problems and growth to our struggles.
Our lives are secured in eternity.
This ends with the restoration of a relationship with God we were intended to have
Metanarrative
God created this world in perfection and relationship
God says that the story will end with perfection and relationship
We are in the middle of that story. We have the opportunity to be restored to the relationship humanity was designed to have.
Will we trust Him and become a part of the Kingdom?
Today, we are opening up the last segment of this series. There are some words that we are going to tackle that bring clarity to the Gospel.
We have looked at interactions and stories. Now we will get clear teaching and understanding of these ideas.
Read Matthew 21:28-32
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
Pray
Main Topic
Context
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus was speaking with the Chief Priests
Not just the priests, but the chief priests
He was also speaking with the elders of the people
These guys were being antagonistic toward Jesus. They did not believe in His authority. They did not want to follow.
It’s funny in Jesus’ ministry, how it was the religious people who often rejected Jesus. They thought they could be righteous by following all of their religious rules.
But the “sinful” people knew they were sinful. There was no question in their lives. They had made decisions and suffered the consequences of those decisions.
Their decisions had not just had consequences in the area of their sin, but they became outcasts. They were known by their sin. Their sin became the very definition of their lives.
In that place, there is very little hope. People only define you by what you have done. There is no opportunity to change. You are what you have done.
But it was the sinful people who were attracted to Jesus and His teaching.
He accepted them. He loved them. He saw them for who they were, not what they had done.
that is where our story comes from.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
This story is starts out as a parable
A physical story that is given spiritual meaning.
There is a specific point made in the story, so we need to understand the simple point so we can look at the story correctly.
There was a man who had two sons.
To the first son, he said, “Go out and work today in the vineyard”
“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
I don’t know what was going on in the background. That doesn’t really matter.
But the kid was like, “I’ve got better things to do. I’m going to do what I want, not what you want.”
But something happened in his heart.
He experienced a change of some sort. Without the prompting of his father, he goes out and does the work he was asked to do.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
The father goes to the other son and asks the same thing.
The second son says, “Sure dad, I’ll get right on it.”
With his mouth, he agreed, but with his action, he did not
He never showed up for work.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
Jesus asks these religious people who were criticizing him, “Which one of these boys did what his father wanted?”
Well, the first was rebellious to the face of the father, but then had a change of heart and returned to do the work that was asked.
At the end of the day, he obeyed, even though he looked rebellious for a bit.
The second son looked good to the father, but when the father looked out in the field, he was the disobedient one.
The only answer to this question was that it was the first son who did what his father asked.
Jesus then said that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of you.
You meaning whom? The religious leaders.
Define tax collectors- National and religious sellouts to the Roman government. They were disowned, could not worship at the temple.
Define the Kingdom of God
The Kingdom is anywhere God is King.
In the Kingdom, there is a King. King Jesus
In the Kingdom, there are citizens. Those who have surrendered allegiance to the King
There are also those outside of the Kingdom
The difference between what we see in the movies and what we see in this Kingdom is that this Kingdom does not go to war with the world around it.
It’s purpose is to bring a lost and dying world into the Kingdom alongside of them.
In this short story, Jesus is condemning the religious people as the brother who talk a good game, but their lives don’t match up. At the same time, he is acknowledging that the most sinful of their society are being welcomed and celebrated by God as being a part of the Kingdom.
This had to be so backwards for everyone to hear.
You look at them and they are not good people! But you look at these other guys and they look like good people.
What point is Jesus making in this story?
There is a key word that I want to highlight today. We brought it up briefly last week, but I want to rest on it today.
It is what separated the tax collectors and prostitutes from the religious leaders.
In fact this word was the subject matter of Jesus’ first sermons.
The word is repentance.
Repentance
I want to start here in talking about repentance because it is the message Jesus began His ministry with.
In the book of Matthew, one of the disciples account of the life of Jesus, it begins with the birth of Jesus.
It then goes to Jesus baptism
Immediately following His baptism, he doesn’t directly go into any ministry, he goes into the wilderness and fasts.
40 days with no food and temptation by Satan.
Following this, he began what we know about Jesus ministry. Here is how it starts:
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Luke records another point from early in Jesus’ ministry
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus ministry was one of repentance.
When we hear repentance in our world, I don’t know that we fully grasp the concept of what Jesus is saying.
In our world, the Gospel is presented as some historical facts that if you believe they happened you are saved.
Repentance becomes something secondary that happens from time to time, but it isn’t necessary because you are already saved.
Does this line up with Jesus message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near?”
It sounds to me like repentance was a central point of His presentation of the Gospel.
Repentance is often communicated as purely changing what I do.
You must repent from your sin
So the outcome is that I need to start doing righteous, churchy things, not sinful things.
Today, we are going to break this word down in terms that we can understand.
Then we will look at the reason behind why Jesus would desire a repentant heart
Last, we will look at what repentance looks like in our world.
Repentance Defined
I want to boil this down in the most simple terms
The Gospel brings about change in our lives
As we have looked at the stories of the Gospel, there is a difference between light and dark.
There is a difference between a fruitful plant and a fruitless one.
In all of these stories that show the results of the Gospel in our lives, it involves a change from before the Gospel was present.
We are going to look at repentance through a few different lenses.
It is my hope that through this, those of you who are unsaved in this room can see that following Jesus isn’t simply adding a few rules to your life. There really is no point to any of this if it isn’t going to impact your life.
Also, it is my hope that through this definition, those of you who follow Jesus can assess your life realign yourself to a heart that Jesus desires.
Repentance is often communicated through the lens of walking one way, then turning 180 degrees and walking another way.
This communicates a partial truth, but I don’t want to bypass the most important part of repentance, so we will dive into a more in depth discussion of this topic today.
There are three types of repentance that we are going to discuss today. It isn’t that there are two wrong ones and one right one. All three types are connected, but not necessarily all present.
Repentance of the Will
There are two ways to approach a repentance of the will
First, it is not initiated by the repentant one
I want to equate this to a parent with their children.
If your kid doesn’t clean his room, you can ground him, and do certain motivating tactics to get the behavior you desire.
Did your kid change? Yes.
Did their mind change about the action? No. They still didn’t want to. The only reason they showed change was because they were forced to.
The other way to bring a repentance of the will is by changing the mind.
I learn something new and I decide to bring that change about.
The metaphorical child learns that when his room is messy and he needs to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, all of those fun toys become landmines on his carpet and can become very painful.
This learning brings about change of the will.
Repentance is often simply communicated as “Doing different things”
Or, “doing righteous things”.
I want to tackle this at a much deeper level though.
Is this all God wants? Does He want children that are afraid of doing the wrong thing for fear of punishment? No. That is not the heart of God at all.
We saw that last week when we talked about the heart of the Father, or the shepherd, or the lady who had the coin
We saw that the week before with the owner of the vineyard. No matter how much “Work” was done, they were rewarded the same.
It seems that if we want an appropriately repentant will, we need the second point here.
Repentance of the Mind
We must learn what God wants of us and obey Him.
This is good! We may know this is good for our lives.
We know this is good for us in the eyes of God
This is changing the way I think about my life.
This is the transition of the child with his room when he goes from, “I’m being forced to clean my room” to “I’m going to clean my room because it makes life better.”
But I want to ask the question, is a repentant mind and will all God wants?
I don’t believe so.
There were a group of people walking around at the time of Jesus called the Pharisees.
They did all of the most righteous things they could imagine.
They knew all of God’s law.
Their minds were changed. Their will was changed. But listen to what Jesus said of them:
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’
Do you see what Jesus critique of them was?
He didn’t say they were doing the wrong things
He didn’t say they knew the wrong set of rules
He said “I want your heart.”
This is where repentance starts. This is the true starting place of repentance: the heart
Repentance of the Heart
Repentance of the heart is relational
This is truly the starting place of repentance
When we look back at the Pharisees, again, they were doing good things, but they refused to acknowledge or know Jesus.
It is the child knowing the heart of the parent and cleaning their room because they know it will grow a relationship of trust, while living in the benefits of a clean room
Repentance is about knowing Jesus and trusting Him
When we get into the topic of faith, we will discuss that next week. But faith and repentance walk hand in hand.
Repentance in any other form is based on our will and our need.
Repentance of the heart is based on knowing and trusting Him
To put it in these terms, repentance is the act of aligning a life of loving Jesus.
Repentance of the heart is transformational
It works its way back down the ladder from what we’ve built about repentance
When the heart is changed and we look to trust Jesus in that relationship, it changes how we approach our minds.
We seek the Scriptures, not to find the rules for life. Rather, we seek the Scriptures to know Christ.
When we know Christ a heart of repentance follows Him
The heart that knows the will of Jesus will do the will of Jesus and the will is transformed
Let’s put repentance in terms of another metaphor
Let’s say there is a young single man who is looking for a wife
He looks high and low
He dresses the part
He goes and flirts with all of the ladies
He does the whole single guy routine.
But when he finds the woman he wants to spend his life with, should he undergo a change?
Just a change of will? Only changing so his wife won’t yell at him? Of course not.
Just a change of mind and will? Making change only because he knows it will make a happy marriage. Better, but no.
Wives in the room, you want the heart. A heart that knows his wife and does what he can to please her. He doesn’t chase other ladies, partly because it is wrong, but he doesn’t want to hurt the heart of his wife.
This is a snapshot of repentance.
This leads to the next point
Repentance of the heart is continual
Just like in a marriage, the groom doesn’t say, “I will in this moment stop being single and for our wedding, love you like you are the only person in the world that matters to me.”
Then after the vows are made, goes back to living how he did.
We often think of repentance as an act.
It is the moment of stopping sin and changing our lives.
But that is where I love this marriage metaphor. There is a wedding day, then there is a marriage
There is a moment of salvation, then there is a lifetime of following Jesus.
Repentance is an act, but it is a condition of a heart that continues to seek after Jesus and move from our erroneous ways and follow His path.
Repentance aligns us with Jesus. It is His view of truth, not ours.
Repentance is always directed at Jesus
Is it emotional?
Last week, one of the things we talked about was the remorse for sin the son felt.
What if I don’t feel a ton of emotion? What if I am not falling on my knees in tears every night because of my sin?
Repentance is more than an emotion. Some people respond with emotion. Others less so.
God made all of us differently in regards to emotional response.
However, repentance is relational over emotional.
We certainly regret the times we spent walking away from Jesus, but repentance leads us to Him.
With a change of the heart comes a change of the mind. With a change of the mind comes a change of the will.
Repentance should result in a change of the will. It is the outward expression of what God is doing within you.
Repentance and Salvation
Which brings us back to the message of Jesus
Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.
God has always desired a repentant heart
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Jonah
The prophets
In every case where someone turned their heart toward God in repentance, we see God turn His heart toward them in redemption.
Jesus very closely connected repentance with Salvation
We might hear that as, “I need to change what I do in order to be saved”
This is not what is meant at all
Repentance is the result of seeking to know Jesus
Repentance and the Church
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Did I leave anything out?
There are two words I left out that are of vital importance.
Let me read it again and emphasize those two words.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
“to obey”
It is not enough to merely bring about repentance of the mind, we must show and model with one another a heart that seeks to know Jesus and lives out that change in our world.
We will see that this leads to a sermon on faith coming up
also it will lead to discipleship
All critical thoughts on Jesus understanding of the Gospel.
The message of repentance