SA Ep87 - Articles of Faith #10 Repentance and Faith

SA Ep87 - Articles of Faith #10 Repentance and Faith

In this episode, we look at repentance and faith, the God ordained response to the Gospel. The Bible teaches that salvation is received when a sinner turns from sin and turns to Christ in faith. We will define repentance, explain what true faith is, and show how the two are inseparably connected. This episode also addresses common misunderstandings, including shallow belief and emotional decisions without true conversion. Repentance and faith are not works that earn salvation, but the response of a heart awakened by grace.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. The last time we were together, we looked at salvation by grace. And if salvation is then a free gift of God, then how do we receive it? Do we need to get on a mailing list? Is there a sign up sheet for this? Was it that guy that walked up to me at Lowe's that day with a clipboard and I told him I was not interested? Did I miss it? What does God require from us in order to receive this free gift of God? Is it a feeling? Is it a decision? Is it a is it a moment of some outburst that I must have? The Bible is very clear in the answer to it. We have made it more than what it is, but the Bible is very clear. The response to the gospel is repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not belief in facts and laws and rites and rituals, but it's turning our heart away from the things that we were. That's what repentance means. A 180, a different, you're facing left and you completely turn to the right. You're facing north and you completely turn south. It's that turning of the heart and trusting God with your soul in eternity. Trusting, as Paul said, in the death, the burial, and the resurrection. Because without trust in that, without faith in that, there is no salvation. And I would add one more to that. Without the virgin birth, there is no salvation. Without a sinless life of Christ, there is no salvation. So all those things are important. All those things. So when we come to this doctrine, this article of faith, we answer the question of what must I do to be saved? People had asked that in the scripture, and people are continuing to ask that today. We've had people who visit our church that will say the same thing. They'll say, you know, Pastor, I don't know if I can be saved. I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I've lived right enough. You know, help me to understand how it is that I can I can be saved. Well, it's really salvation is uh dare I say simple. It's so simple as salvation. We've heard that before. Salvation is not through religious activities or a process of self-improvement. There's no 10 step program, do better pill or something like that you got to do. You don't have to lay on a couch and and uh confess all your all your problems to you know somebody you know with a uh a black suit and a white collar and nothing like that. When when God, by his grace, brings conviction through the Holy Spirit, there must be a convicting of the Holy Spirit. There must be a hearing of God's word. You've got to put yourself in some positions, I think. I mean, sometimes uh people and and the circumstances around you can put you in a position that that uh uh you weren't actually uh looking for. I mean, that's what missionaries and and and witnesses and those who uh go into the highways and the hedges and search and seek after, they will sometimes uh come to you where you're at. But uh if you're if you have the wherewithal, if you understand, you know, that uh you know people have been inviting you to church and things like that, or or wanting you to go to uh Bible studies, and you and you get yourself in a position where you can hear the gospel message, and it's through hearing that gospel message that the Holy Spirit will begin to convict your spirit, because every man has a spirit, every man has has a something uh the breath of God that he breathed into man at the very beginning. We have that, and it's always seeking after God. It's trying to get back to him. So that response to him is is faith and and what then becomes repentance of turning ourselves back to him. Repentance is something that's is one of those Bible words. It's uh it's really uh uh a technical word. It's there it always means the same thing to repent, to turn from one thing to another. And sometimes it's very it's a very very often misunderstood. Some people think it's just feeling sorry. Oh, I repent of that thing. That's what it's become. You know, it's we've kind of made it very shallow. Oh, I I repent. I'm so sorry I did that. Others think it's you know trying to clean up your life and and uh you know scrub it clean before coming to God. That's not repentance. Biblical repentance is much deeper than an emotion and much broader than some uh you know new paint job. It's a complete change of the mind that leads to a change of direction. It's seeing God as God sees uh us, or it's it's seeing the sin as as God sees it. And agreeing with him about it, and turning toward him. Acts 3 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. So repentance is uh I mean, I wouldn't even say the step, it's the half step, it's the it's the micro step before salvation. It says, repent and be converted. Conversion, that's salvation. Repentance involves honest recognition, no excuses, no comparisons, no blame shifting, no pointing at someone else and saying, Well, at least I'm better than they are. It is me and you taking ownership of our sin and saying, you know what? I'm wrong. This is wrong. What I'm doing is wrong. God is right, his word is right, his word is true. It surrenders that self-rule that we all want. Instead of going our own way, we go God's way. But repentance is not a work that earns salvation. Again, it's not by works, lest any man should boast. We just dealt with that. So repentance is not a work. It's not something to to to work after, as some people want to do. I want I want to make myself better before I get saved. You're gonna be working at that a long time. A really long time. It's it's not there's it's not a way of making ourselves worthy of it. It's a response. It's a it's a true expression in our walk and our and our and our and our daily life. And faith is on the other side of that response. If repentance is turning from sin, then faith is turning to Christ. See, you can turn away from your sin but not turn to Christ. There's a great story in in scripture about a man who cleaned his house, got all the evil spirits out of his house, cleaned it up, got it clean, spotless, that thing was shining white gloved around everything, and it was perfectly spotlessly clean. You know what? Whole bunch more uh bad spirits moved right back in. Because he didn't fill it with anything. And there's a lot of people who do that. They'll turn from a sin. I'm not gonna do that anymore. I'm gonna turn from that sin and they'll turn, but when they turn, they don't turn and then fill their life in faith with Christ. They turn and they fill it with something else. They turn and fill it with some other book, some other, you know, uh person or show or I mean, even a church, they'll fill it with a church, but the church is not what's gonna bring us salvation. It's not faith in a church or a man. And I'll say this as a pastor. I hope my church does not have faith in me. I'm I'm a mere man. I'm gonna let you down. I'm gonna say things that may hurt your feelings and then miss the mark. I'm I'm a sinful creature just like anybody else. I try to hold myself to a higher standard. I try to be different and act different and talk different and react different. I try to do those things, but I'm a man. I've got the same uh sinful nature like anybody else does. So having faith in me is going to do nothing more than be a disappointment. I don't ever want anybody in my church, and I tell them this, I don't want everybody in my church to say, come hear my pastor. I don't want anybody to hear me. Lord help don't listen to me. I'm I'm glad you're listening to the podcast. I mean, you know, I'm not really, you know, people are who try to build platforms, you know, so they can um, you know, I guess have a lot of followers and all those kind of things, they would they're probably shaking their heads, you know, right now if they hear something like that. Me telling everybody, don't have faith in me, don't listen to me. They're probably screaming, like, what in the world are you doing? Let me help you build your brand and your your audience. I'm not here to build a brand or an audience. I'm I'm here to exalt Christ. So when I say don't listen to me, I'm saying don't hear the words I'm saying. Hear what Christ is speaking to you through this, through the word, through God's uh divine nature of bringing you to a point where you can hear, where you've felt him in your life before. Romans 10 9 says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That belief is not surface level. It's not a moment in church, like, oh yeah, I believe that. Yay, okay now, let's go on back to real life now. That's it's it's it's something that travels with you. Repentance and faith must go together. You cannot separate one. If you have faith with no repentance, what have you done? If you have repentance with no faith, who are you following? You can't truly turn to Christ without turning from sin, and you can't truly turn from sin without turning to Christ. They are hand in hand, they're they are they are inseparable. Now, this helps us understand the difference in mere believing and saving faith. There's many people who believe. James writes that even the devils believe and they tremble. The demons, you can go and read the evil spirits in in the in the gospel accounts, only they knew who Jesus was. I like going back to the account of the the in Acts of the seven sons of Skeva. These uh men who worked in the temple. They was the uh evil spirit that got in. And watching what had happened before with Paul, boy, they just got in there and they looked at that evil spirit and they said, Well uh we in the name of of Jesus and Paul, we we command you to get out. That evil spirit said, Jesus I know. Paul I know. But who are you? Boy, they knew they were in for a ride at that point. They ran the Bible says naked and wounded out of the temple that day. The demons they know who Jesus is. They believe in him. Don't mean that they trust him, don't mean that they have faith in him, it don't mean that they follow him. Some people have reduced repentance and faith to just a mere repeating of a prayer. Pray this prayer after me and you'll be saved. I don't really like that. Never really been a part of that group. Um now I understand there's people out there that don't know how to pray. They don't understand what it means to pray, but it's still not my job to pray for them. I can I I I can show them as as uh Philip did, the Ethiopian eunuch. Show me what I know, help help me to understand what I need to read or what what this is saying to me. I can help you understand, but I can't pray your prayer for you. I can't I can't repent for you, I can't turn you, I can't have faith for you. That's got to come from you. And it's not about the words anyway, it's about the man's heart. The right words to say eloquence elo eloquency is not in the plan of salvation. Not from what I've read. So, what does this mean for you today? What does this article mean for us? It's very simple. If you have turned from the things in your life that have pulled you away from God, remember God's in enmity with sin. We're all going to be sin natures, we're all going to have those things, we're going to have those uh those thoughts and those times where we get angry and we know we are going to, you know, we're yelling at the people in the other car, and you know, we uh we we we honk you you know there's a difference in the way you honk your horn when you're telling you know somebody, you know, hey, you know, have a good day. And when you're telling somebody you just pulled out in front of me, you know, there's a difference in the way you honk your horn. And we we sin all the time. And and and God knows that He He told us we're gonna sin every day, we're gonna sin daily. But what this means for you is that if you have trusted in Christ and you have turned from that sin. And you're not living in it just because you know God will forgive you, but it it it's something you're truly trying to turn from and to follow after him, that means that you have repented and you now have faith. And it's not by works, it's a response, it's the doorway. And they remain a part of your Christian life during your entire walk because there'll always be that drawback to sin, but that repentance keeps you focused away from it, and the faith keeps you focused on Christ. The question is whether we have truly turned. The question is whether we truly have faith. Because that's where salvation must begin. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.