Repent is Not a Four-letter Word (Acts 3:17-26)

Transcript

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And if you have your Bibles, would you go ahead and grab those Bibles? If you did not bring a Bible with you, we can always get you a Bible. Feel free to take one of the Pew Bibles, their ESV study Bible or Pew Bibles, and they're the translation that we read here. But you could always pull out your uh app or you could look on the screens behind me. But we're gonna start by reading our text this morning out of Acts chapter 3, and we're actually gonna be in verses 17 to 26. We're continuing in our series in the book of Acts, and so we're gonna be there really all year. And so I'm excited to unpack this text with you this morning. And so here at Vintage Church, we stand for the reading of God's Word. So if you're willing and you're able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word? We stand because we believe that the scriptures are inspired, that they are authoritative, and that by them we can be transformed. We can hear the good news and become more and more like Jesus. And so therefore, we believe that the scriptures equip us, encourage us, and empower us to encounter the risen Christ so that we might make Jesus irresistible in everyday life. And so we are right smack dab in the middle of Peter's sermon after the lame beggar was healed at the gate beautiful. And now he is addressing the Pharisees, he's addressing the religious rulers of the day at the temple in Jerusalem, in Solomon's portico. This is the word of the Lord. Pick it up right there in verse 17. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaim these days, you are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Would you pray with me this morning? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your spirit. We thank you for Jesus, who sent the Holy Spirit that we might know you better. And so that's what we're asking for in this moment, Jesus, that you would send the Holy Spirit, give us wisdom, give us revelation of who you are and who we are in light of you, so that we might change our mind, that we might turn to you and turn from lies and turn from empty idols. You ultimately want to lead us to times of refreshing, renewal, revival. And so, Jesus, we asked, Lord, that we would pass through the gate of repentance. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you. You know, growing up in the church, my dad was a pastor, my grandfather was a pastor, and growing up in the church, there were certain words that you could not say. And most of them were four-letter words. And I know I've heard of some of you say those four-letter words, and it's okay, you're still welcome. Just kidding. Um, no, you are welcome. I'm not kidding about that part, but you know, growing up in church, there are certain words you're not supposed to say. Um they do sneak out here or there, but nonetheless, the one word that I feel oftentimes is not allowed in most churches these days is the word repent. Repent. And I think for most of us, we actually think that the word repent or repentance is a four-letter word. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that this morning and tell you that repentance is not a dirty word. It is not something that we should avoid talking about in church. Most definitely, it is a blessing from God. And yet, for most of us, when we hear this word repent, we think of this. Can you show the next slide? We think of this. We think of the person on the street corner holding up the sign. This one's a little bit PG, and it's true, right? I repent, Jesus saves, amen. And yet, you probably have seen some people on the street corners that say something to the effect of repent, turn or burn, right? Like most people associate the word repentance with this ideology of turn or burn. And though it is true, maybe it is not kind, but I want to talk to you a little bit about this idea of repentance this morning, because you've heard it already twice in the book of Acts. Um, you heard it in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. He said, repent and be baptized. And then right after that, here after the lame beggar was healed at the gate beautiful, Peter once again stands up in Solomon's portico in Jerusalem, and he says, Repent. And we're gonna pick it up right there in verse 17, and we're kind of work through the text and talk about repentance this morning. And so look at that with me in verse 17, Acts chapter 3, it says, Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. And so the first thing we have to see with this idea of repentance is repentance means in the Greek to change one's mind. And oftentimes when we are sinning, we don't even know that we're sinning. Because sinning has this, um, I think it was Augustine who said that the mother of all sin is pride. And one of the character traits of pride is that it blinds you. You don't think that you are sinning, you are doing what is good in your own eyes, and that's how the Bible describes it. And so, this idea of repentance um is that we have to first see rightly before we can act rightly, right? And we're gonna talk more about that this morning. But historically within the church, there's been this two categories of sin. And I want to talk to you about that this morning. Sins of commission and sins of omission should be on the next slide. And if you don't know what these are, they're fairly simple. Sins of commission are things that you know you shouldn't do and you do them. Right? Sins of omission are things you know you should do, but you don't do, right? These are sins of omission and sins of commission. And you know, when it comes to sin, a lot of us don't even know that we're sinning. And yet when we come to Christ, the Holy Spirit begins to awaken in us revelation of God's character, of his law. And though the law was fulfilled in Christ, the law actually has a good and right and noble purpose in our gospel age, right? And it's that the law is intended to show us we need help. How do you understand when it comes to our relationship with Jesus, we need help? It shows us that we're broken. In the Mosaic law, there's 613 commands, and it is crushing. Um, our cohort 101 has been, I think we just got through Genesis, uh, what is it, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Torah, and we're like, thank you. We are out of the law, we're more in the narratives, we're more in Joshua, and it still gets bad in the Old Testament. We're like, can we please get to Jesus? Hurry up. Um, but when you read the law, it's crushing. But even in the New Testament, James says that if you break the law at one point, you're guilty of it all. It would almost be like you jaywalk, and next thing you know, you're on death row because you're guilty of capital murder and treason. You're like, what happened? God's holy law is given to us to show us how holy God is, but sin does something within us, it deceives us. Remember, Satan's native language is lying. He wants to deceive you and to so that you would think that your sin isn't that bad. I'm not as bad as that person.

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And most of us just throw it to Hitler. We're like, we're not Hitler.

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It's not relevant or it's not relative. Sin is relative not to humanity, sin is relative to God's holiness and his character. So we should not be comparing to one another. We should be comparing our life, our sin, with the holiness and standard of God. And so, right off the bat, I love what Peter says. He says, Listen, I know that you acted in ignorance, but now that's over. Jesus Christ died, Jesus Christ raised from the dead. You are witnesses of this. Now you must give an account, and so I am going to call you to repentance. And here is the thing that I love about this text. Because a lot of us are already going, oh, this is going to be one of those sermons. But look at verse 19 with me. It says, Repent, therefore, turn back that your sins may be blotted out. Who wants their sins blotted out? Who wants their sins forgiven? Past, present, future, forgiven. That sounds amazing. It gets better that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Our little huddle. I was back there listening. Our like 3, 2, 1, go fight when break word was present. How appropriate was that? Who wants to understand and feel and encounter the presence of the Lord? Who wants times of refreshing? And that word also has the uh connotation of renewal, of restoration, of revival. Who wants personal revival? Who wants family revival? Who wants corporate revival, church revival? Who wants revival in our city? Well, if you want revival and renewal, then revival runs through the gate of repentance. Revival runs through the gate of repentance. Some of the most recent, you can call them awakenings or renewals. Some refer to them as revivals, but um Asbury, and then there was another one at I think it was the SEU college. And you know what's so fascinating about these two outpourings? One, they were with college students, and there is something definitely happening in Generation Z. They are hungry for God and they are flocking to Him, and it is amazing. But did you know that the two outpourings at Asbury and this other college that resulted in many spontaneous baptisms and hours and hours of just lingering in the presence of God, that both of them started with repentance and confession of sin?

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It's almost as if the Bible is true.

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And that the scripture I read earlier during our prayer time in Isaiah chapter 66, when it says, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Who will build a house for me, a temple, a place of my dwelling place where my presence can be? Who? And he says, This is to whom I will look. He too is humble, contrite, which means penitent or repentant, broken before the Lord, and trembles at my word. And so you see that that revival always starts through the gate of repentance. I'm sorry, revival is not filling the Holy Ghost goosebumps as you worship and sing, and the smoke on the smoke uh machines are filling up the stage, and there's lights, and you're getting emotionally manipulated. That's not revival. Revival is when you are broken and contrite before the Lord and you repent of your sins and the Holy Spirit, yes, he does come, and you do worship and you do sing loud, and there are tears flowing. But I'm telling you right now, it starts with repentance. And repentance is not, I think we have to start by kind of asking this question what is repentance? Because I think for many of us, when we hear the word repent, we think of this idea of grief. We think of this idea of sorrow, we think of this emotion. That's not repentance. Um, the word repentance actually has an etymology of coming from uh, you know, obviously the English word, and it has this more connotation of guilt and sorrow and grief. And so for many of us, when we think of this idea of repentance, we think of this, you know, emotional, tearful, sorrowful moment where we're just weeping before the Lord, and that's repentance. And yet when we look to the text, when we look to the Bible, both the Hebrew and the Greek um language, Hebrew obviously the Old Testament, Greek, and the New Testament, those are the original languages that we get our English translation from. When we look to the text, it's not so much grief or sorrow, that's a maybe a part of it, but it's something way more robust. It's something way more holistic. And so in the Greek, the word for repentance is metanoia, metanoia, meta meaning after or um, and then noia or noose comes from where the inner self, the soul, the mind. So it's a complete change of mind. It's to think differently, it's to see the world differently. And then in the Hebrew in the Old Testament, um, it's this word shoov. And I just want to, you know, I'm sorry, this is just my mind, but I can't see that Hebrew word and not go shove. Like God just wants to shove us and turn us around. But, anyways, uh side note there. But Hebrew, shove, right? It's to turn, it's to return to the Lord, it's to come back. And so when we kind of put those two ideas together and we see from a biblical lens what this idea of repentance is, this is what we get. That repentance, the definition should be on the screen. That repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction that flows from a heart that has been awakened by God. We cannot do this on our own. Repentance, as we'll see, is a gift. It is something that God grants us. And the first thing that He grants us is a vision of who He is. And in light of His glory, we see our own sin and we are broken by it. And then we repent, we think differently. It's like almost we have been living our lives as thinking that I'm not that bad of a person, I'm a pretty good person, and then we stumble into the glory of God and we're like, whoa, I am dust, I am uh really low, I am a sinner, and everything changes because then we see not only his glory, but we also see his grace in Jesus Christ, and it's his kindness that will lead us to repentance. And so a little bit more of a succinct definition, and this is where I really want to go with you this morning that repentance is a reorientation of the life, of your life, all of your life, towards God. It's a reorientation. You see, repentance is not just a one-time thing, it's not a one-and-done thing. It's not like when you first came to the Lord, you saw that you were a sinner, you needed a savior, so you repented, you believed the gospel, you walked up to the altar call, you raised your hand, and now you're done, sealed, whatever. No, repentance, in the words of Martin Luther, is all of life is repentance. All of life is repentance. It's a constant reorientation of your life towards God. You're constantly recalibrating. Anyone use maps on their iPhone or whatever it is for you Android, Android people? I don't know if it's maps or Google or whatever, but you guys get the idea. Have you ever been using your maps? You're going to a destination, and then you take a wrong turn, or you stop and get Starbucks, and then you see that little thing, and it's like reorienting, recalibrating the direction.

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It's repenting.

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It's reorienting your current location to the destination that you were trying to get to. That's repentance. And that's why all of life is repentance. There's that psalm that says, My heart is prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. We are prone to go to Starbucks, make a wrong turn at left. If it's my kids, they laugh. It's Dutch Brothers, right? Like they're our hearts are prone to go after things that are not God. Lesser things, sometimes even good things, that we make ultimate things that become God things in our life, and they always fail us. They always leave us not satisfied. And so if we fail to repent, guess what happens? We get lost. We get lost. And the thing that we're striving for as Christians, the very presence of God, it eludes us because we are not practicing repentance and faith. Repentance and faith. And so this morning I just want to spend some time with you talking about the dynamics of repentance. The dynamics of repentance. Because again, many of us think repentance is grief, repentance is sorrow. Sometimes we even think that repentance is confession. And confession, though it is part of repentance, is not the sum total of repentance. Just because you confessed your sins to the Lord or to a brother or sister does not necessarily mean you repented. Repentance is something more robust. So I want to talk this morning with you about the dynamics of repentance. So, number one, if you're taking notes, the first dynamic of repentance is that you've got to catch a vision of God's glory. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to Isaiah chapter 6. We're going to read just a few verses. This is for me one of the most life-changing, transformative texts that I've ever read and encountered personally. My life was flipped upside down, reoriented because of this text. It's about the prophet Isaiah when he catches a glimpse, a vision of the glory of God. And so, verse one, it says this in the year that King Uzziah died, I have it underlined in my Bible. Anyone want to say that with me? I saw the Lord. Did you know that every single growth in grace in your life will come from you seeing the Lord? Revelation. Every time there is no change, no transformation without seeing the Lord. Sitting upon a throne, I think that's important. He has authority, he is the creator, he is God, he is high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two, he covered his face, and with two, he covered his feet, and with two he flew, and one called to another and said, Here it is: holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Not only when you catch a glimpse of his glory, you also have to see his holiness, that he is pure and spotless, he is righteous and just and majestic. You notice that it never says in the Bible, love, love, love. God is love for sure. But the attribute that is said three times or thrice is his holiness. Why? Because he is not like any of us. He is completely separate, completely other. He is holy, and his glory fills the whole earth. And it says the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Well, the I is important here. It's Isaiah. Isaiah was the mouthpiece of Israel. He was the prophet to Israel. And the righteous prophet of Israel is saying what? Let's read it. Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. In other words, the prophet of Israel, everyone thought that guy had it figured out. He was righteous. But when the righteous prophet catches a glimpse of the righteous God, he's like, I'm undone. I have unclean lips. And if you've never had this experience, then my friends, I would hope that you would ask the Lord this morning to grace you with a vision of who he is and his glory, because it is his glory that leads us to repentance. Think of Peter in the New Testament. When Peter had a glimpse on the Sea of Galilee of who Jesus was, he says, Depart from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.

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When you catch a glimpse of the Lord, you immediately go, it's not like, hey, homie. That's not the reaction of Isaiah or Peter.

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But continues. He says, Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal, but he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth, and he said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for. What a beautiful picture of the gospel. He saw the glory, fell on his knees, and then grace touched his lips and made them pure and clean. And the natural process is followed in verse 8. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And he says, Here am I, send me. You see, you will never do mission right unless you catch a glimpse of God's glory, are broken by your sin, receive the grace of God, and then out of a posture of humility and gratitude, you with reckless abandonment say, Send me wherever in, coach, I'm ready to go. That is how the gospel transforms you. Um, I want to show you something that I had in mind. I hope this helps. On the top, you see the glory of God. On the bottom, a sense of self-awareness. How sinful am I? You see, our problem with sin and how it deceives us is that we minimize sin and we minimize God's holiness. And when we minimize God's holiness and we minimize our own sinfulness, it creates this large gap. Well, I'm just going to call the sin gap. And remember in Romans 3.23 it says, for all have sinned. Anyone want to finish it with me? And fallen short of the glory of God. So that's kind of what this is trying to depict this morning. Glory of God. We have fallen short of the glory of God. We're going to call that our sin gap. And that, my friends, is where we have room for repentance. And if this morning you're like, I'm good. I don't need to repent. Uh, well, let's just again look at the glory of God and you.

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Creator of all things and you. Perfectly holy, never lied, never done anything unjust, and you. I think we all have room for repentance.

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So, number two, after you catch a glimpse of the vision of the glory of God, what should happen if the grace of God is working in your heart is a conviction of sin. A conviction of sin. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me into the New Testament to 2 Corinthians chapter 7. It should be on the screen behind me. But in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, one of my favorite passages, I think this depicts repentance, one of the best passages on repentance. 2 Corinthians chapter 7, starting verse 10, this is what it says. Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation or deliverance without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. And so what's going on here? Well, in the book of Corinthians, there was a guy who sinned really bad. Just go read first Corinthians. It was awful. I think he like slept with his mother-in-law or stepmother. It was nasty and ugly. He got excommunicated and he's getting restored back to the church. And so they're talking about repentance here. And it kind of gives us two categories. It talks about godly sorrow or godly grief and worldly sorrow and worldly grief. Now, if you are a parent, you have seen worldly sorrow many times. They got caught, they don't want time out, they don't want punishment or discipline, and so they cry and they're, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. And then guess what happens? They do it again. You know why they were crying? Because they got caught and they didn't like the consequences of getting caught. And so worldly grief comes up from the heart, and they're so sorry, and they'll say, I did it, I'm I confess, I'm so sorry, but then they're back at it again.

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Worldly sorrow does not lead to repentance, it leads to death.

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Godly sorrow, on the other hand, leads to salvation and deliverance, restoration and revival. Why? Because your grief is not horizontal, your grief is vertical. This is David in Psalm 51 that says, Against you and you alone have I sinned. And you're like, wait a minute. You sinned against Uriah, you sinned against Bathsheba. Wait a minute, why are you saying, Against you and you alone have I sinned? He had godly grief in that moment, godly sorrow. And it took a prophet, it took Nathan to show him that. And in that moment of repentance, in that moment where he, and if you remember the story, I love this because Nathan comes not saying, Hey man, you're a sinner. He's like, Let me tell you a story. There was a king, he had all the sheep in the world, and yet he really wanted this one little sheep. And this guy loved his one little sheep, he loved this sheep. He, you know, like me and Odin, he, my dog, he like took them everywhere. You could always find this guy with his sheep, but you, this guy, this guy had all the sheep, want to go steal that sheep from that little guy. And like David, as he's hearing the story, is getting furious. And he's like, Where is this guy? I need to discipline and punish him. And then Nathan like flips it and he says, You're the man. Conviction. See, oftentimes we need that type of reality check because we don't see our sin rightly in light of God, not in light of our consequences. It's a huge world of difference. When we see our sin in light of our consequences, it will not be lasting repentance and fruit. If we see it in relationship to God, it will produce life, it will produce times of refreshing. And that's what happened in this particular case. I mean, think of the fruit of this man's repentance. Earnestness, eagerness, indignation at his sin. He hated it. Fear, longing, zeal. So if you are tired of the sin in your life, I would ask you to consider this morning. Are you full of worldly sorrow? Or are you full of godly sorrow? I've seen this too many times as a pastor over the years. Parents start to come to church because their kids are crazy and they need some help.

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Is that a worldly sorrow or godly sorrow?

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They're seeing the effects of their sin in their family, and they don't like it. So they want to bring them to church and try to do the right thing, and it doesn't always last. Godly sorrow leads to life, and repentance leads to restoration and renewal and times of refreshing. Conviction of sin. And I want to add a point of clarity here. Conviction is not the same as condemnation. In Romans 8, it says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When you catch a glimpse of God, he doesn't just make you feel bad. Like a surgeon, he points out your sin and he says, That's gotta go. Condemnation is I'm a bad person. I'm an awful person. Conviction is that's bad. Get it out of your life. Does that make sense? You see the difference? And many of us are walking around with a sense of condemnation and it is this heaviness in our lives. And it every time we hear about sin or every time we hear about repentance or any type of God's holiness, we're like, oh, I don't want to feel that. That's not from the Lord, that's from the devil. If it's from the Lord, it is a conviction with the surgical precision to say that little sin is causing you to stumble and miss out on life. And I love you so much, I want to remove that from you and bring you to myself so that you would be restored and renewed. So repent and live. Number three, confession of sin. So after having a vision of God's glory and then being convicted of your sin, that should lead to a confession of your sin. Now, we are not Roman Catholics, we do not believe that you need to go to a priest to have confession. You can confess your sins to God and God alone. However, big asterisk right here. In James, it says, confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed. In other words, what that means, if you are not confessing your sins, you're carrying it. And the greatest thing for you is to trust the grace of God, trust the gospel, confess that sin to a trusted friend or a trusted counselor or a trusted pastor, someone who knows the gospel, confess that sin, and they will lead you to life, lead you to repentance, lead you to faith, and you will be healed. Times of refreshing will come. First John chapter one, this is what the beloved says. Should be on the screens, but first John chapter one, familiar passage, most likely. But in verse eight, I might back it up to verse seven. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus' son cleanses us from all sin. Amen. Hallelujah. We want our sin cleansed. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. So this morning, if you're like, I'm good. You're deceiving yourself. The sin gap is real in your life. You need to get a glimpse of the glory of God. Then he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Now, again, a point of clarity. This isn't living a life of what some have referred to as navel gazing. Navel gazing is when you're constantly looking at yourself and your soul and you're going, Am I sinning? Am I sinning? Am I sinning? Am I sinning?

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Am I sinning? If you do that, you're gonna sin more. You want to know the path to freedom?

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Not this, this. Beholding the glory and grace of Jesus, beholding the cross. That is how you will change. But it will lead you to confess your sins. And then, number four, your heart will turn toward God. This is the turn. You see, it's turning away from your sin and it's turning toward God. Faith and repentance are the different sides of the same coin. You cannot have repentance and faith separate. They go together. Repentance always leads to faith, or it does not, or it is not repentance. We see that in Acts 3 in our text this morning. Acts 3 verse 19. This is what it says. Acts 3 19, he says, Repent, therefore, and turn back. Turn back that your sins may be blotted out. That in that's think of the GPS thing again. You're lost. Turn back, get back on route to the presence of God, to the times of refreshing, recalibrate, repent, turn around. Repent. And where does this come from? If you have your Bibles, go with me to the Old Testament, to Jeremiah chapter 2. This is the um diagnosis of the human condition. If you've ever wondered what's wrong with us, I mean, all you have to do is look at the news, look at social media, look at your own life, maybe, and be like, what is wrong with me? I've had some of those reflections this week. Like, what is wrong with me? Why do I do the thing that I don't want to do? And why do I not do the thing I know I'm supposed to do? Paul could actually relate and he says, What a wretched man I am. Who anyone ever felt like that? This is time for honesty. Who's ever felt like that? Like, why can't I get this thing together? Right? He says, Oh, wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to the Lord, our Jesus Christ, who gives me the victory. But this is the condition of our sin. This is the condition of humanity. Look at verse 11 with me. Should be on the screen behind me. It says, Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? Listen, but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. In other words, they're living for things that they think will make them happy and satisfied and will profit them, but it is turning out they were wrong. They were sold a bill of goods, bait and switch, and this is most people. I'm if I live for my job, it will pay back. If I live for sports, it will pay back. If I live for this relationship, if I live for this substance, if I live for this ministry, if I live for this church, it will pay back. And we always are left empty. And so look at what it says. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils. Here it is. They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, evil number one. Instead of receiving the fountain of living waters as their source and their substance and their savior, Jesus, they've turned evil number one. Then it continues, and hewed out cisterns or wells for themselves, broken cisterns or wells that can hold no water. So they said, I don't want the fountain of living water, I want Netflix. I don't want fountain and of living water. I need sex and power and control and family and ministry. And you can just keep going on because our hearts are an idol factory, in the words of John Calvin. They're broken cisterns that don't hold water. So did you catch that? We turned away from God and we turned to broken wells. So therefore, the process back to the fountain of living water is to turn from our idols and turn to the fountain of living water. The Bible, theological language here, repentance and faith. That's the turn. That's how we change. That's where we get back on track and we're no longer lost. Our heart must turn toward God. And then number, I think we're on five, reorientation of life. All of life now is reoriented around God and His glory and His mission, His Word. The relationship becomes the center of everything. God is not supposed to be first in your life. Some of you are like, He's not. Because you know when He's first, you check it off and then you go back to your own life. God's supposed to be at the center and the middle of everything. When you go to work, He's at the center. When you're in your marriage, he's at the center. When you're eating, he's at the center. When you're at church, he's at the center. In your recreation, he's at the center. In your rest, he's at the center. Relationship with God is a complete reorientation of your life to God. That He is the fountain of living water. This is Romans 12, 1 to 2. It says, Therefore, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, for this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. That's a complete reorientation of life around the mercies of God. That's true repentance and true faith. Repentance and faith is not a decision, it's not a prayer that you do once and then live your life. This is a complete reorientation of your life. Number six the work of repentance. See, a lot of us think that repentance, as I said, is a one-time thing. No, repentance is a lifestyle. Repentance, as in Martin Luther, all of life is repentance. It is work, it is replacing lies with truth. How many of you know that you've been sold lies by yourself, by culture, by the church? You've been given lies and you've built your life and your mind and your imagination. On these lies. And the work of repentance is replacing those lies with truth. Real quick, 2 Corinthians chapter, I think it's 11. I want you to hear this because it's helpful. Make sure I got it right. Yeah, verse, it's actually, this is not, this is bonus. 2 Corinthians 10, chapter 10, verse 3. It says, For though we walk in the flesh, we're not waging war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. What are strongholds? They're the lies that you've believed and you've built your life on. And then he says, We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. You've put lies and half-truths and pseudo-truths, and you've built a wall that's keeping you from the presence of God. And the lifestyle of repentance is identifying those truths or those half-truths, those lies, and it's repenting of it, changing your mind, thinking differently, throwing that down by the power of the Spirit, and then rebuilding your life on truth. That is how you change. And it says, take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish disobedience when your obedience is clean. Take every thought captive. You have that thought in your head in your head that says you're not worth it, you're a loser, nobody loves you. You take that thought, you submit it to the gospel, and you say, That's a lie, and you replace it with truth, you replace it with scripture, you replace it with the character of God, and that's part of the work of repentance. And the second work of repentance is turning from idols to God. I'll be honest.

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For me, this is I need to repent from the surface idol of chocolate chip cookies. And I need to repent from the source idol of comfort.

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You see, I have in my heart, I want comfort. A lot of us do. And for me, sometimes it's eating too many chocolate chip cookies, and I'm just being honest, this isn't a joke. Because you know that you can eat in such a way that ultimately will affect your health. And it's a long haul. And Satan might just be like, sure, eat those extra cookies, and in 20 years, you're gonna be distracted and discontinue the mission and calling that I have for you in life because you're eating like garbage.

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Real talk this morning from me, because I need to repent. Repent of the idol of comfort. What's yours? We have surface idols, and then we have source idols.

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That's another topic. Maybe we'll get there in this series. But the the big idea this morning is that the repentance is a work, it continues. It's not just a praise Jesus, I repented. It takes replacing lies and replacing them with truth. It takes turning from idols and turning back to God. This is why we have the the, I believe, the Canaan conquest where Joshua goes into the land, and what does he do? He tears down every high hill, he destroys all the idols. That is a physical narrative and story of what our spiritual life should be. Number seven, last one. If you catch a vision of God's glory, if you are convicted of sin, if you confess your sin, if your heart turns towards God in faith and you begin to reorient all of your life toward God and you do the work of repentance by the grace of God, by the Spirit of God, repentance will bear fruit in your life.

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Jesus said in Matthew 3:8, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

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So, don't take my word for it this morning. Jesus, the one who died on the cross for your sins, got up out of the grave, ascended to the right hand of the Father, sent the Holy Spirit, he said in Matthew 3:8, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And if we want to have fruitful and flourishing lives that make Jesus irresistible in our everyday lives, guess what, church? We need to be repenters. Husbands, be the lead repenter in your home. Fathers, be the lead repenter in your home. Small group leaders, be the lead repenter in your group. Team leads, be the lead repenter in your ministry. Pastors, be the lead repenter in your church. Repentance is not a four-letter word.

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Repentance is a blessing from God. Repentance is a gift.

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And it is granted by God. It's a gift. I mean, you see it right there at the end of the text in Acts chapter 3. Acts chapter 3, this is what it says. I think it's verse 26. He says, God having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, listen, listen, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. If you have received true repentance that flows out of godly grief, you are blessed by God. And I don't think Hobby Lobby is going to have a sign that says blessed by repentance. But I'm telling you right now, you want to be blessed, repent. It's a gift. It's granted by God. Acts 11:18 on the screen. This is what it says. God has granted repentance that leads to life. God grants repentance. It's a gift because he loves us. 2 Timothy 2, 25 says it this way. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. It's a gift. God grants us repentance because he is good. And then finally, Romans 2.4 says it this way: God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Not this fear, not this, I don't want to be out of relationship with God. I mean, that's part of it. I don't want to go to hell. You know what the thing that should drive you to repent? It's his kindness. It's his mercy when you say, What is this kindness and what is this mercy? And what is this goodness? And what is this grace? What is this love that when I was far from God and when I was a sinner, when I was an idolater, and I was worshiping created things and not the creator, when I was a cosmic traitor and rebel and deserved hell, Jesus Christ came to this earth, died in my place for my sins, got up on my cross, paid for my sins, and then three days later got out of the tomb, walked out, raised to the right side of the Father, sent the Holy Spirit so that I can have the gift of life, the gift of repentance and faith and salvation in Christ, so that times of refreshing, renewal, and revival can come to me and my family and my children's children and my church. Please hear me this morning. Repentance is a gift. Repentance is a blessing, and it leads to times of refreshing, renewal, and revival. Lastly, here it is. Repentance, it's not a burden.

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It's not a burden, it's a doorway, it's a doorway, it's a path. So here's the question this morning: Will you enter in the narrow way?

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And will you repent? And will you believe the good news of the kingdom? Will you believe the gospel and be saved? Be healed, be delivered, so that times of refreshing and times of renewal and times of revival will come. Let's pray.