Watch and Pray Series #1 – FRUITS OF REPENTANCE
Let’s pray. Lord we gather this morning in the name of Your Son and because of His High and Holy Name we reckon Lord that this is a sacred assembly. Lord we don’t gather here to promote our own interests or lift up our own selves with pride or satisfy our own desires Lord, we gather here to learn of You, to exalt Your name to exhort one another and Lord that we might be conformed and be Lord reformed in the image of Christ and Lord that You would do a work in us that would be pleasing to You. Lord we have a great need at this time in this day that our hearts be turned towards You fully in every manner and every way, we ask Lord that You would grant to us that repentance that we need and Lord that the uprightness of our heart would reflect that righteousness that is ours by faith in Christ that we being your people could be a light, city on the hill, Lord those who clearly speak forth Your praises by the manner of which we live. Lord help us this morning that we might be nourished and exhorted and directed towards obedience and towards that grace Lord which is richly ours in Christ and we ask in His precious name, amen.
Well good morning. Last week when we began our discussion about watching until the Lord returns, issues that relate to living the Christian life in a normal way today in light of the Lord’s return tomorrow, we began with the issue of covetousness and one respect we sort of got into the main issue but one aspect of that issue really as we touch on each issue is the aspect of repentance. The discussion this morning is going to center around repentance and what repentance is. But I really approach the topic this morning a little bit quietly because there’s a verse in 2 Timothy 2:25 that says that, “Per chance God will grant them repentance.” Repentance isn’t a given. You can’t will it this moment, you cannot have it just because you want it; you can’t postpone it from today until tomorrow thinking that tomorrow will be fine, repentance is a matter of sincerity and it’s a matter of the work of God in our lives. And repentance certainly is an issue that we too often hear too little of and even more often see less of in the fruit of it in people’s lives, in our own lives. My concern about speaking on repentance would be somehow that the mere speaking on it and of it would give the impression that somehow, “o.k. we’ve covered that topic and now we can go on,” as if that’s a topic that can be covered in that kind of manner and be finished.
Turn your Bibles to Matthew and while you’re turning your Bibles to Matthew let me give a few other brief introductory remarks if I may. On the issue of repentance, first of all, as a believer the first kind of discussion I’ve heard on repentance years ago was a battle ground of doctrinal debate between those who would say repentance is a part of the manifestation of faith in Christ and others who said, “No if you make repentance such then you have made it a work of man aside from the work of grace and therefore you’ve added to the Gospel and you’re anathema” and I heard this what I view really foolhearty discussion going on frequently from those who were trying to be purest of the Gospel on either side of the issue, both sides perhaps missing the mark entirely in the discussion of it. If the Gospel is merely a doctrine and doctrines only need to be ascented to then the intellectuals can all be saved. But I don’t believe that you’ll find any evidence in the Scriptures anywhere in any sort or any time that intellectualism saves you or can save you, in fact rather the opposite is true, those who cling to their intellectualism find themselves lost and outside the fold because the mind of man cannot grasp the mind of God, it needs the Spirit of God to transform it, to inform it and to give it that which God has for it from on High. You cannot attain to it by your own efforts and your own wisdom. So repentance really takes into consideration that larger issue of my relationship with God on His terms. The simplest definition of repentance is to turn, to turn and do the opposite. It’s an about face turn; it’s an exact opposite turn, it’s a change of mind, it’s a change of heart but it’s not just that it’s an action based upon a change of mind and a change of heart. It’s something that has substantial impact in the person of who I am and what I’m going to do. Therefore it seems to me rather incredible that when we open our Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew and begin the beginning of the New Testament discourse and dissertation that he, John the Baptist who was sent before Christ to prepare the way of the Lord, that he preached a message of repentance and that message of repentance that he preached was a preliminary message to prepare people for the Lord warning them that the Lord Himself would bring the additional fires of repentance and He would do a work of repentance in the souls and the hearts of man. And so it’s rather important for us to stop and consider that all that the Spirit of God does in the heart of man, all of it, nothing excluded, all that the Spirit of God does in the heart of man is based upon the work of repentance and that is it’s an assessment that that which man can offer to the solution and that which man can bring forth into the context of his personal life and godliness, all that man can bring forth is inadequate and it’s incapable of pleasing God or satisfying the requirements God demands and therefore presses upon us the need of significant outside help and repentance is running up the white flag of surrender and saying to God, “I need help for in me there is nothing that I can offer and in You are all things.” And the mere calling upon the name of the Lord for salvation, that genuine calling of heart cannot ever be separated from repentance because that indeed very shape and form is the whole essence of repentance, acknowledgment of my need in God apart from me. So it seems to me if I could simplify the Christian life to a real ordinary concept, if I’m going to walk in Christ today I’m going to be walking in repentance. I’m going to be walking in repentance from the world toward God. I’m going to be having a change of mind and a change of heart. Not an intellectual change of mind and a change of heart, but a change of heart that has come by revelation, has come by that which is in the Word for me to see, that which has been granted to me in terms of process and prospect. Now I want to suggest this morning that our need, our need, this little body of people right here, our need is a need for repentance. That which we can do of significance and value and worth out there today and tomorrow etc., that which is worthy can only be attained to by our connecting to God and His resources and thus it can only be attained to by repentance, it can only be done by repentance. The thing about repentance in and of itself is it’s the only way we can walk in humility towards God and humility towards God is the only way we get His grace. God gives grace to the humble and He resists the proud. You might state that the natural state of man is pride. Man in his own condition, in his own lot, in his own ambition, in his own motivation, that which man does by his own inclination is pride and it is motivated by his own vaunting[?] of self, pursuit of self and exposure of his own grandeur and that’s what needs to cease and come to the end of itself in order for God to His person and His work and His share in the person and work of the man’s life. We have a need then as Christians to walk humbly before God, to be walking in repentance and the believer who’s walking humbly today is walking in repentance today from that which they know they are outside of Christ clinging to that which is their only hope in Christ.
In a little bit of further extended introduction, if you’ll turn to Matthew 3, and we’re going to read a little bit from John the Baptist, his preaching ministry, actually this is the largest portion of his ministry recorded in Scripture and it says in verse 1, “In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent ye for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand for this is he that was spoken of the prophet Isaiah saying, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord and make straight His paths’.’ At the same time John had his raiment of camel’s hair and a linen girdle about his loins and his meat was locust and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around about Jordan and were baptized of him in the Jordan confessing their sins.” Now notice that the ministry of preaching repentance resulted in a response of people being baptized as an external evidence of their statement of affairs, baptism you could say is the evidence of repentance, it’s the means of manifestation, “I agree with this,” and confessing their sins, dealing with their own personal individual lives before God. Yes we’re all sinners but personally and individually you’re a sinner. And personally and individually you have many offenses against God and you need to confess your sins, that’s a personal matter in your life and you don’t need to confess the sins of your neighbor, you need to confess your sins. So these people were taking care of their own business. What happened is we have this normal process when human events occur and many people pursue anything we get a fad. And fads are always a pain and fads always die out but fads that are found in the church, fads that are found among godly people pursuing God those fads are sometimes the most difficult fads because we end up with a whole bunch of pretenders who have gone through immediately some experiential outward thing to demonstrate that they are aligning themselves with that which can only be aligned to inwardly but they have no where shape or form the desire to do that. And so we see this rebuke coming from John the Baptist in verse 7 and when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Saducees come to his baptism, he said to them, “O generation of vipors, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits, meat,” the word “meat” is fitting, “bring forth therefore fruits, meat, for repentance and think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” At this particular point what we reckon with here is the fact that some would adorn themselves with some form of religious experiential practice and hope through hypocrisy being seen by men to find themselves in the group that’s well accepted. So we see thus are the Pharisees and the Saducees and that’s why the Lord said, “Except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees and the Saducees, you’ll in no wise see the kingdom of Heaven.” Now the phrase I want to focus on then this morning is, “Bring forth therefore fruits, meat, or fitting for repentance.” What are fruits fitting for repentance? That’s a very good question. And that question actually becomes a very personal question because it means that you are dealing with your sins in a very personal and distinct manner. “Fruit fitting for repentance” relates to you and to you personally. Now in the gospel of Luke, He goes on a little bit and He addresses the soldiers and He addresses the tax collectors and He addresses these various groups of people and He tells them what to do in context of their own repentance and service toward God. He makes it very practical in an individual basis and He usually addresses the general largest problem that that individual had as reflected in his profession or in his connectedness. But what I want to talk about this morning then a little bit is how do you go about bringing forth fruit that’s fitting for repentance? There’s a little mistake that we make and I’m guilty of making this mistake too. You have wronged someone and you confess your fault and you said, “I wronged you, I’m sorry,” and you ask forgiveness. And we think in our culture today that that is sufficient, that’s enough. I apologized and I asked forgiveness and now it’s over. When you’re dealing with forgiveness, the person forgiving you certainly extends to you a freedom based on forgiveness, a freedom from his right to demand your punishment, but the reality is confessing my sin, acknowledging my sin, is not repentance. That in and of itself is not repentance. “I did this and I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it,” that’s not repentance. Now personally I have counseled people over the years and it has been my very very sad and woeful predicament to counsel on occasion men who are suspected of being unfaithful to their wives and in the course of time their sin comes out and they’re confronted with their sin and the immediate thing that these men generally do as a uniform example that they have not repented is the usual thing that they do, they follow this little sequence: they say, “I was wrong, I’m sorry.” They may even weep, they may have big crocodile tears flowing down their face saying, “I’m sorry please forgive me.” And then they expect immediately that the offended spouse act as if nothing had ever happened and that the offended spouse completely give over to this husband 100% of trust again with absolutely nothing being procured by the husband as a fruit fitting of repentance, absolutely providing nothing. And in my counseling, I don’t usually have to counsel these folks very long because once you get to the root and you begin to see what’s there then all you do is you turn around and you say, “Let me ask you a question sir, you are whining to me and complaining about all your wife’s mistrusts and you’re putting your halo on telling me how wonderful you are and how you have apologized and acknowledged your sin and how you are so hurt that your wife won’t forgive you,” you know it’s couched in, “She won’t forgive me, she won’t forgive me.” “Now I want to ask you a question, have you ever thought for a moment that perhaps your wife feels insecure, she feels violated and she has this tremendous gulf to spand of trust? Has that ever crossed your mind that that might be an emotional struggle that your wife is having at this time?” And usually in my presence the guy will acknowledge, “Yes I can imagine that.” “Let me ask you a question, if you were considering your wife for just a moment, what do you think you could possible do, list out some of these concerns she has, is there anything that you could do by your own behavior that would demonstrate and manifest to your wife that you truly recognize how horrendous your sin was and that there is nothing too small for you that you will do to make this matter right? Is there anything?” And I don’t tell them what I usually think it is although it usually comes to my mind what would be obvious and the men, they’ll generally respond in this manner, “Yea but I won’t do that.” “So wait a minute, but you didn’t tell me what it was. What won’t you do?” And they’ll state it and it will be as clear as nails, the one thing that they can do which will separate themselves, turning away from their sin and their pride and arrogance and fastening themselves humbly to a course of correction by which their only concern is to correct that matter and to turn every stone to make it right. And I find in the counseling process that at that time in the counseling process the husband usually leaves the family and goes off and lives in sin permanently and it’s the end of the story because they will not deal with the issue. And so this morning we’re talking about repentance not just the glossy sugar coated concept that if I admit my wrong when I’m caught and ask forgiveness that I’m cleared and there’s nothing else to resolve.
If you’ll move with me please then, this morning our discussion is fruits of repentance. Let’s turn to 2 Corinthians please to chapter 7 and in 2 Corinthians 7 we find what I consider the most impressive teaching on repentance in all the Bible. 2 Corinthians 7, question to you is, do you have 2 Corinthians 7 repentance? Are you dealing in repentance as the Lord reveals here in 2 Corinthians? Let’s pick it up at verse 6, but just a moment I realize there’s some children here that probably aren’t following along as well, let me give just a little bit of background. Listen up. In the book of 1 Corinthians, what happened? The Apostle Paul wrote a letter scolding and rebuking and correcting the Corinthians for their flagrant refusal to correct sin in their own midst. What happened was they had a man who was married to his mother which is against the law of God and against even the Gentiles. None of the Gentiles did that. And he was living openly and lavishly and just full of pride and arrogance and the Corinthians saw nothing with it. They’d let him sit right in the midst. There they were sitting in the crowd of church on Sunday in their arrogance and pride. And the Corinthians weren’t doing anything about it. So Paul writes a letter and said, “I’m not even there, I’m not even present with you but being this far away I can figure this one out. Get rid of the leaven. Remove the leaven for a little leaven spoils the whole lump.” So he brings a very serious and severe teaching in 1 Corinthians that says they needed to deal with this matter and correct their sin. Now what happens here in 2 Corinthians 7, Paul is writing another letter and he has heard a report back from one of his co-workers, he’s heard a report back from the Corinthians that indeed they repented from the sinfulness and the carelessness of their heart. So what happens here in 2 Corinthians 7 is Paul is commending them for the manner in which they repented. And in this commendation we find the best teaching on repentance that you’ll find in all of Scripture. So looking at verse 6 in chapter 7 it begins, “Nevertheless God that comforts those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” Now I want you to understand something here and this, dads, this is kind of a word to you although it applies absolutely to moms, anyone who has ones under their care, notice that Paul is the one that rebuked the Corinthians and notice the words that he chooses here concerning himself, “God that comforts those that are cast down.” Paul was so heavy with the unrepentant sin that it had cast him down, he was completely in turmoil and strife that this dear church that he had labored with two years in his ministry that this dear church was so careless and so senseless to sin and he was heavy burdened and the Scripture here says, “cast down.” So here’s this case where Paul wrote the last letter and being cast down until this response. Picking up and continuing on he says this, “God comforted us by the coming of Titus.” In other words he gets this report when Titus comes to tell them how things are going in Corinth and verse 7 he says, “And not only by his coming only but by the consolation with which he was comforted in you when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, and your fervent mind toward me so that I rejoiced the more. For though I made you sorry with the letter I do not repent.” One of the things that you need to understand is we know so little about repentance that we can’t even use it in a normal sentence. What did he mean? I didn’t change my mind. I’m not sorry I did something, I didn’t change my mind about it.” He said, “Though I did repent,” after he wrote the letter, “for I perceived that the same epistle hath made you sorry though it were for but a season.” And what Paul was basically saying is he was sorry he had to write such a hard letter and it grieved his spirit. The manner of that letter was so harsh and he almost wished he hadn’t done it. Have you ever done that? You’ve corrected somebody, you knew you were right but after you did it you said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” It’s this troublesomeness in your soul and Paul had that struggle in his own feelings as he tried to do what was right. But now he’s getting this reward and saying, “I’m not sorry any longer I’m really glad I wrote the letter and I see that it did a good work in you and it made you sorry for a season.” Now he goes on and he says, “I rejoice, not that you were made sorry but that you sorrowed to repentance.” And here’s a real secret children about your parents and really here’s a little secret folks whenyou have somebody who’s watching for your soul: they’re really interested in you, they’re not just interested in themselves but they’re caring about you. When someone is caring about you they’re not just interested in making you uncomfortable but they’re interested in making you discomfortable so thatyou might repent, so that there would be a work accomplished in you. I’ll tell you this, the flesh of man likes to make people uncomfortable and very often when a man is walking in his own work, in his own pride, in his own sense of authority, his interest in dealing with people is generally just the joy of inflicting pain and sorrow and punishment and he gets his pleasure in that and that’s a wicked man and there are those that are like that. But those that are watching for your soul, those that are laboring for you on behalf of Christ, that is not their heart. I’ve often tried to remind my children when I’m in the middle of combat with them and they feel like I’m their enemy and I try to remind them and say, “You need to understand something, I’m on your side and I’m inflicting pain, not because it’s fun but because I want you to win. I want you to have the victory. That’s the goal, that’s the objective.” Here we see Paul’s heart, “Not that you were made sorry but that you sorrowed to repentance for you were made sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us in nothing.” I love that insight to being a ruler, one who has the care or the watch of other souls. Good picture for mom and dad and anyone in any kind of ministry. But this picture of damage, Paul didn’t want them to receive damage by him in anything. How do you think that related back to this whole issue? It related back to the whole issue that Paul would be so careless in his ministry that he wouldn’t call onto the carpet that which needed to be called on the carpet so that they might repent. The damage the Corinthians would have received on behalf of Paul was if he kept his mouth shut, if he failed to address the issue that needed to be addressed. And so his whole zeal was thinking in terms of obligation, “I didn’t cause you to suffer loss. I executed my ministry to the fullest.” So picking it back up again, verse 10, “For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world leads to death.” That’s a beautiful picture of the whole cycle that goes on. Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation not to be repented of. In other words once this process is got in place and that redemption has been worked in your life and you are established on the sure footed ground of the grace of God, that joy that’s yours, that peace and that wonder of God’s mercy to you, you look back and say, “I’m so glad God made me sorry. I’m so glad God brought that correction in my life and cut me off and kept me.” And how many parents, parents I have a little challenge for you today, this is just a practical point, how many of you parents are going to have children that when they get to a point where they can look back objectively they’re going to say, “Dad why didn’t you have the courage to say no to me? Why didn’t you have the courage to say no to me? I was so wrong and I was so proud, I needed your help and you didn’t say no, you said yes and I was pleased in my sin.” Now I’m not trying to excuse you children, you can’t blame your dads for your failure to obey God, but I do want to warn us who have that opportunity and that responsibility there is a future coming and the future coming is when you can objectively look back. I think I told you my sticker story. Can I tell the sticker story on you again Dan? I learned this a long time ago but when we built a brand new home down the road and I wanted to keep a brand new home looking nice. I wanted a nice home and Daniel started to grow into that age where he wanted to have stuff on the wall and junk. I say, “Wait a minute son, this is a house. You don’t put stuff on the house walls. So he started to get a big collection of little stickers and running out of books to stick them on, so he negotiated with me and this was a dad negotiating in weakness. The fond affection of a father had more value than the wise consideration of a father and so he asked me, “How about my dresser dad? That’s mine. How about if I put the stickers on the dresser?” What you don’t know is he had the nicest dresser in the whole house, it was the only real dresser we had. And it was mahogony, real nice. In the weakness of fatherly affection I said, “Alright that’s fine, your dresser is your domain, I just tell you though that your dresser, when you get married you’re taking the stickers with you.” So he fills his dresser with stickers, now you’re talking about kindergarten and younger stickers. So one day he becomes a man, he’s twelve. And he tries to clean the stickers off and they won’t come off and he comes down to me, I’m in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs and he’s at the top of the stairs and he’s furious and he said, “Dad why did you let me put those stickers on my dresser? That was so stupid. Don’t you have enough sense that they don’t come off? You let me ruin a good peace of furniture. How come you didn’t stand up to me?” I learned a lesson that day. That was an important lesson for being a father. At that day I said, “You know, God, I don’t ever want my son to say that to me again especially where it really counts and by God’s grace I’m going to stand like a rock, I’m going to stand and hold forth the Truth and hold forth the right,” because there is going to be a day when my child is going to gain enough objective perspective and they’re going to look back and they’re not going to see in me a godly man. They’re going to see in me a cowaring coward who caved into their emotional gratification and didn’t have the courage to say no to a little kid and by God’s grace that’s where I want to stand someday. I will say on other matters that may be more important, I did have a day when Dan came to me in tears, weeping and saying, “Thank you Dad, thank you for standing strong. Thank you for resisting me, thank you for not letting me have my way. Today I have been saved from much harm by your strength.” And this is the kind of heart that Paul had in his ministry. This is the work of a ruler who loves to serve people God’s way and the objective is not that someone is sorrowful but that someone reaches salvation and can reach that place where they can say, “And I don’t repent of it, I wouldn’t change a thing. By the grace of God I have secured that which is most treasured and I do not change my mind about it now though back then I might have considered changing my mind about it like Paul said.”
Let’s go on then, verse 11, “For behold the self same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what vehement desire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge, in all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” I’m going to stop reading the passage because my comments are limited to what I’ve read so far. What we find here in chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians, we find the most comprehensive picture of repentance that I believe I’ve seen in all Scripture. Let’s go through and highlight it real quickly and perhaps bring a few things to close here in our minds. First of all I want you to notice the words. Backing up a little bit to verse 6, the first thing I want you to point out is the comfort, the comfort that repentance brings. I have a little book that was written back in the 1800s and it’s written by a father to children. And the opemomg chapter of this book is a consideration asking children to consider, “Children do you know how much power you hold over the happiness of your parents? Do you know how much power you hold over the happiness of your parents?” And for those who are entrusted with spiritual duty and obligation there is a heaviness connected to moral failing and spiritual confusion in the lives of those that are under our care. There is a tremendous heaviness of heart. God is merciful I know and there is no excuse for our sin, but I know frankly that many times a parent’s excessive response in correcting a child many times is fueled by the energy of that heavy heavy heart in that signal concern that this child’s welfare is at risk and they may be ruined forever and that stirring up of the heart many times might cause people like me to step over and be harsh and be angry and to try to stop the sin and almost stomp the sinner in the process. But there’s a care, there’s a connectedness. And I want to say something to you. When you’ve really repented there’s always a connection in your repentance back to the authority that you are under watch that you have a responsibility to make right. In this respect, if you’re an adult and you wake up as an adult to your own immoral reckless sinfulness as a young person where you threw off the constraint and restraint of your parents in your own arrogance and interest, repentance isn’t going to be complete in your life until you’ve gone back and made restitution at that place and humbled yourself and acknowledged your sin in fulness and in complicity to what God was wanting to do in them for you. But notice this comfort. True repentance brings comfort in the heart of those who are over you. Why do I say this? Because this is a really valuable lesson, it’s a real valuable rule. Remember the story I told at the beginning who was unfaithful to his wife, caught, weeps, asks forgiveness, receives forgiveness and then what does he want? He wants the wife to forget it. True repentance comforts the person that is most significantly bound up in that situation. And the husband that’s been unfaithful to his wife, there’s no evidence of repentance in his life ever until the time that his wife’s heart is comforted toward him. Now my wife and I had an unusual experience one year but we bought a car from some couple that happened to be moving to another place and when we got there we found out that they were Christians and so we had a wonderful evening sharing stories. Well as the evening went on, they both with enamored joy of salvation, told this story of the horrible days when he had been unfaithful to her and all the circumstances surrounding it and I stood back with wonder as I watched the wife with complete peace, with complete confidence, with complete joy in the Lord speaking freely of her husband’s sin and speaking more freely of his complete repentance and restoration and how her own heart was completely restored back to that place of confidence by God’s grace. And I took note, I said, “There’s repentance.” Repentance that’s a true work in my heart always has a ringing residue in the heart of someone that has substantive relationship and duty and responsibility to that person. It always rings true. So children I want to say somehting to you, are you asking forgiveness but your folks are not buying it? You can’t buy this kind of stuff. You can’t deceive. You might be trapped and you might be able to force the issue and you might be able to get your way, but the heart is what gets comforted when true repentance takes place. And the first issue of true repentance that Paul brings up is comfort, comfort in the one that has responsibility and close connection to the issue. That is really valuable. In fact if I don’t say anything else, that is the most significant, practical illustration to help discern repentance when you’re dealing with those under your care.
The second point that he brings up is found in the next verse when he says, “We didn’t just get consolation by his coming but what he said to us when he told us of your earnest desire,” your earnest desire. The next part of repentance is earnest desire. I want to tell you something. I believe that most of us find ourselves at the place where we begin to have an earnest desire to correct a problem, to correct a sin. We begin to have an earnest desire. Desire is an emotion. It’s this stirring of the heart and it gives us energy and focus but it’s the filling up of our emotional basin as it were to do and to fix what’s right. But I want to warn you, it’s not enough and it’s not repentance. It’s part of the whole package, the earnest desire. Earnest has a bit of connotation that means “pressing into it,” so that the word “desire” is magnified by using the word “earnest” as an adjective in the context. But the sincerety and the significance of concern, my focus is built, I’ve got to get this right. Second issue, earnest desire.
Now the third issue, you’ll forgive me how I’m going to handle this, but if you’ll look in the rest of that verse there, it talks about after your earnest desire, it talks about your mourning, your mourning. Mourning is a very important part of repentance. When I was a little boy and first heard about repentance I thought that repentance was mourning, that if I was truly sorry for my sin that was repentance, that mourning process. But mourning has to do with the depth of my understanding of the significance of my sin. That’s what mourning is all about. Mourning has to do with the depth of my understanding of the significance of my sin. Here’s an illustration from Scripture: remember when David sinned against Bathsheba and Bathsheba’s husband he murdered? How did God reach him? God reached him with a mournful tale. Through the prophet Nathan constructed a picture of just how awful this criminal was and so he tells this story about the rich man that has all these sheep and the little guy that has one sheep and the rich man stills the little guy’s sheep and kills him for a guest that comes through town and fed it to him. And by the time David heard this, I don’t know if you know but if you look carefully over David’s life you’ll see that David was always, always giving his heart to the downtrodden. He was always caring for the small guy. He had a heart for them and a love for them. So this was really a word picture that got his attention because this was the kind of person that he liked to protect and he heard about somebody stomping on him and he was ready to take war. And he gives a verdict, he gives judgement. David says in all his fierce of emotion, “That man is worthy of death.” And at that point when the vehement desire got worked up Nathan said, “You’re the man.” And in that context the capacity for David to see his sin as it truly was in God’s eyes struck him. Thunder struck him. And I want to tell you, this is one of the reasons why we don’t have repentance occuring in our lives, part of it’s that we’re so busy. WE’re so busy and we’re so full of business that we’re just rushing from here and there and we don’t even stop to think and consider. In fact that is absolutely Satan’s tool. Look in the Old Testament and the idolatry going on, the Scripture says they took and tree and they cut it down and they brought it out and they cut half of it and with half of it they formed and made a god and they bowed down to it and said this [?] and the other half they made a fire and cooked their food and they never stopped to think it’s the same piece of wood, it doesn’t even make sense. But this business of life, Satan confines us to business. It’s like a prison and we get so busy we don’t ever stop to consider. One of the things about consideration, if you considered your sin carefully, it would take enough time that you would reduce the number of sins you commited. And therefore you would have less sins to consider and you would end up having more time to live holy once you figured out how to repent. It’s a serious need, taking time for consideration the depth of our offense. How does it really offend God. And this is an area where you really need help from the Lord. You’re not going to get it without Scripture speaking to you on it. Until you see things in the Word clearly constructed, you’re not going to get it. I realize that the Word of God has to be communicated to anyone’s heart by the Holy Spirit, that’s absolutely true. But you know what? It is the Word of God that’s our weapon and so we need to be very familiar and we need to begin to see sin and (tape turned here…) he has no sense of consideration for his own goodness, he’s confident of his own wickedness and that is what he’s resolved in Christ. I have to move along. But this is connected to a later verse which we’ll get to in a minute. But this mourning is connected to godly sorrow. When he talks about godly sorrow there is this sorrow that takes place and in the theme of this particular passage, this mourning, this godly sorrow is significant in terms of the frame of mind that I have when I really recognize my wrong for what it is, my heart becomes broken at the wrong I’ve done and I have no pride to hold up anything that would resist correction or rebuke.
So with that kind of godly sorrow in mind then we can move on and he talked about your fervent mind toward me so that I rejoiced the more. Here’s an interesting thing about repentance, here’s an interesting thing about ministry: by God’s grace we are not alone and we need one another in the process of maintaining appropriate spiritual obedience. But here’s something that happens in true ministry: when you break at the point where you really need help, do you know what you do? You have an inclination immediately to go to the source of help that’s there, a spiritual source of help. We’re not looking for carnal sources but there’s this understanding, here’s this Paul who’s cared for us and he’s borne the burden of our spiritual well-being and when I truly begin to mourn and see what I’ve done wrong and I truly grasp my condition and my need, I have this fervent desire in my mind toward the one and it’s up here I’m beginning to consider, “I need some help.” Do you know what I find? There’s two kind of people that seek counseling as a rule. Two kinds of people seek counseling: one kind of person is a person who’s seeking counsel for somebody else. It may be that they’re suffering from them but they’re seeking and the object of their counsel is to get help for somebody else. But it’s very difficult to counsel in that kind of setting, it’s almost impossible except if you can get down to that which can be dealt with in that person’s life. But there’s another kind of counsel and that kind of counseling almost always bears good fruit 100% of the time and that’s when someone comes and says, “God is breaking me, I need some help,” and this humility and this sorrow of heart is just so manifest and they say, “Here’s my need, here’s my concern,” and they come forth and they really want help and they’re going to be listening and there’s a fervency in their mind and they approach those that have the means of being able to encourage them in working through that which needs repentance. So there’s this fervency that they had towards Paul.
Moving along then on the next page, Paul talks about this godly sorrow working repentance and you might say in terms of vehicle human experience, godly sorrow becomes the most manifest aspect of my repentance because I really become consumed with the wrong I’ve done and so all these energies are focused at correcting the wrong I’ve done. I become convinced at my wrong and now I need to put all my resources towards making that right in whatever way I can. That’s godly sorrow producing repentance. Here is what he says, “This is the testimony of the Corinthians,” skip down to verse 11 and watch. Let’s go through it a little bit slowly here. First of all he says this, “For behold this self same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort.” General testimony, general conclusion, Corinthians sorrowed after a godly sort. There’s a godly sorrow and there’s a worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow leads to death, godly sorrow leads to salvation not to be repented of. So they sorrowed after a godly sort and here’s what it looks like, you want to see godly repentance, here it is, watch: “What carefulness it wrought in you,” carefulness. When I am recognizing how wrong I am, carefulness takes over my whole being and I am concerned about every tiny matter that may have been my fault and there’s a care that’s given so that not one tiny thing is excused or washed over or covered over but I am careful to make sure that everything that needs to be addressed is addressed. There’s a carefulness. You might say with that carefulness this concept of thouroughness. I am wanting to make sure that this thing gets resolved once and for good.
The second thing is kind of connected to the carefulness, “What clearing of yourselves, what clearing of yourselves.” Carefulness and clearing of myself are connected because every possible manner in which I have done wrong, I’m going to make that right; I’m going to clear myself of that. So it becomes a comprehensive thing. Here’s the part that’s a little bit, well it might just be a little bit overwhelming but if you’re really going to repent about something, it’s going to take more than an I’m sorry, will you forgive me. It takes a little bit of time to really carefully consider what am I doing wrong and where am I wrong and how can I fix it at every point. I want to make a couple comments, young people, I really believe this with all my heart, if you will walk humbly before your God, if you will come to God at your age, at your youth, you will come to Him and say, “Lord, I desire to walk before You in a way that pleases You. Lord help me to turn away from all that which is poison and confusion and dishonors You. Help me to walk humbly before You.” If you will develop that characteristic now in your youth, I can gaurantee you something when you reach my age, when you reach my age you will not have baggage and details and depth and breadth of circumstances to deal with. You will have been kept pure. You will have been kept from harm and you will not have to suffer all kinds of terrible consequences which you’ll live the rest of your life suffering from. You’re going to be kept from that. A person that goes through all that can be forgiven and by God’s grace that’s who gets saved is people who need saved and we all need saving. That person getting saved at this stage where the battery is so full of offenses, there’s lots and lots of continuing consequences maybe even to the end of their life where things can’t be fixed and made fully right because of the manner in which they carelessly wasted their youth in foolishness of sin. It’s extremely important to take issue with this stuff now because you won’t get a big lot of baggage to take along with you. This clearing of yourselves, I want to say this practically speaking, I don’t believe that you can do carefully and that you can clear things that you’ve carefully taken note of that you can do that unless you have spent time talking to people and writing down things so that you have the means of just putting it all together. It’s impossible for you to not take care of every matter. Now there’s why God gives us a guilty conscience. By the praise and the mercy of God, when we have something that is not right, there is an uneasiness in our conscience that can’t be at rest. We’re not talking about those who are going to end up searing their conscience and not even having the ability to respond to it, but God’s people can have that conscience be there. ANd so in carefulness we need to address every single matter fully to the end, accurately and completely. But we start with our guilt and we make our corrections in that particular process and we clear ourselves in every matter, any matter that can be cleared.
The next word is “indignation,” “Behold what indignation, what indignation.” You and I usually don’t deal in terms of being indignant one with another but as I think of this sense of carefully restoring my heart to a right place that which I have been wrong in, that which I have needed to clear carefully, that needs a new foundation by which I refer back to that in it’s understanding and I begin out of that sense of true sorrow to despise and to be indignant toward that which is unholy. And there’s two parts of this indignation that’s important. The first part is like David is having a clear understanding Biblically of just how horrible it is. In terms of that process you’ve got to have an understanding of how horrible that thing is. And there’s where the Word of God comes into play and I want to tell you something, brothers and sisters without naming anything in particular, I want to say that this church in America today is filled with people who have no indignation for sin. All we do is sit around and excuse our sin, we feel fine about what we’re doing and we look over our shoulder and we say, “We’re certainly better than they,” and there’s nothing for us to be so worried about, “At least we’re trying,” and we just sleep away our own sense of need and guilt and we focus on other people’s guilt as our sense of security. But we have nothing to do with indignation. But a person’s who’s indignant is one who makes in his own heart an absolute fixed statement, “That is wrong and that’s a memorial to what’s wrong.” And that’s the second part of indignation, I make that which is wrong a memorial to me, it’s a memorial and I am not going to ever do that. But what happens is when you make something a memorial, you have an answer to those that ask you and now you’re going to be able to be a blessing. Here you are walking down the street living a different way and somebody walks up to you and says, “Why are you doing this?” and because you’ve made a memorial of it in righteousness, your heart springs forth with the light of the grace of the Gospel and you say, “Let me tell you why, I have been redeemed and let me tell you my story and this is a memorial to me of my own salvation and how I want to walk right before God.” And you know what? There isn’t a person on the earth that you personally contact in that kind of setting that isn’t going to be given a genuine Gospel tesimony. And I guarantee you no matter how they respond on the surface it’s going to go deep in their heart because that’s what salt is, that’s what light is. It’s that thing that’s impenitratable, it just comes in and it starts to do the preservation process; it reaches into the darkness and begins to shed light and that making of a memorial of that which is clearly wrong in God’s eyes is such an important part of repentance because you know in the old saying, “Don’t ever do it again,” what a wimpy saying. There is no power in the flesh to not do it again, but there is power in the Spirit to never do it again. And when by the grace of God the Truth of God breaks through and I see things from God’s perspective and then in that joyous revelation I make my own sin a memorial and I say, “This I’m going to do for God,” then I have a new foundation to live from. And I dare say it’s a rare occasion that a believer will fall into that sin because it’s become a memorial to them. Praise be to God for His ways of making these things fruitful in our lives.
The next word is “fear.” “What fear.” Now indignation and fear are connected a little bit because indignation is the establishment of that which is God’s perspective on the matter and my making that a memorial in my own heart and fear is companion to that because I recognize that it’s not just a little ritual I’m doing. I’m not just doing some little thing, but I fear God and it is God who has made this my memorial. This is between me and God and it’s my fear of God that enables me in a living way to walk after that which He has revealed. So this fear becomes very clear in my heart. I hate to say this to make it so simplified but the whole of Christian life can be summarized in one phrase, “Who do you fear?” Who do you fear? If you fear man you’re fearing that which temporally is going to keep you back and so you’re motivated by pride and all that that fear provides for you and securing a goodly place here. But if you fear God then you’re willing to set aside all of that which is revealed in life and you’re willing to set all that aside and say, “I need nothing but I’m going to pursue the kingdom of God and His righteousness. I fear not man but I fear God.” So this stirring up of fear.
We talked a little earlier about this earnest desire and now it seems like this earnest desire has translated into vehement desire and so Paul talks about this vehement desire. I think the difference between earnest and vehement is degrees. Vehement’s a lot hotter, it’s a lot hotter of a desire. And the issue with this vehemence is centered around this idea of fear, the recognition that for this God’s going to judge the world. Are you ever motivated that way? Does it ever cross your mind, does it ever fasten itself to your conscience that one day God is going to judge the world and He’s going to bring these things up into account and He’s going to give the purity of His white light, He’s going to give that purity and shine it right on that particular issue and condemn it and judge it and indeed punish it? We are so careless. Some people say, “Well God is a forgiving God and so because He’s a forgiving God it doesn’t really matter. He’s gracious in His forgiveness.” And what we do is we reduce forgiveness down to a little idea that says God doesn’t care, God doesn’t really care about it, He’s going to forgive me anyway. So there’s no consequence, it doesn’t count, it doesn’t really matter. And that’s not what forgiveness is at all. Forgiveness is so wonderful and powerful because it’s going to the extreme of understanding exactly how much God cares. God cares so much that the whole world is going to burn in hell forever and ever, those who haven’t been redeemed in an everlasting fire of torment which He prepared for the devil and his angels. That purifying power of punishment that is forever and ever is the ultimate means by which we measure how God cares and that’s a significant statement. And so the vehemence of my desire gets stirred up out of the fear of God recognizing that this thing will be judged. I can only speak from a brief sense of my own experience and I can tell you that I have found this to be true in my own life, when I see something from God’s perspective when it becomes my own memorial, when I begin to move in fear of violating that because I want to walk in the ways of God, I begin to get this understanding that this is really important to God. And you know what brothers and sisters the thing that’s so important? Who is it going to be important to? Do you think it’s going to be important to the world or to the unrepentant brethren? Do you think they’re going to hold it up in high esteem and care about it? No. We’re the ones by being salt and light that have to do that battle, that take up the issue, that make it a concern and that make it a consideration. It becomes the burden of our heart that we are going to do God’s will. We’re not going to turn to the right or the left. It’s that vehemence of obedience and we recognize that absolutely I’m going to make this right because it’s absolutely important to God.
Then the word “revenge” comes up, “what revenge.” I had better warn you quickly that the word “revenge” here is used in its nominal understanding according to the English language, not yours and my emotional understanding as we have a rare occasion to use words properly in our language anymore anyway. Revenge in its simplest understanding is what? It is the reaction to and correction of that which is wrong. Revenge simply means I corrected it, I fixed it, I did it the way it had to be done. I set back the course and did what was, now revenge, when the Lord says, “Vengence is mine, I will repay,” that has to do with God punishing sin, it has nothing to do with us. So he’s not talking about me having revenge on anyone, what he has me doing is saying, “I have a responsibility to please God period and I have revenge lawfully, graciously, appropriately, I have revenge, when? I have revenge when I take a stand and correctwhere I’ve been wrong. And I turn every effort and I say, “This is where I stand, I’m going to do this thing.” And so whatever it is thatneeds reconciliation, recompense, any kind of restoration at all that needs to go in, I fix it, I set it up. There’s this kind of understanding with true repentance that says this, “From now on because of the grace of God and on behalf of His glory, I am going to serve the Lord. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord and we’re going to do it this way.” And that’s that taking of revenge. It’s instituting and establishing the opposite of what you found yourself to be at fault in and you do it with a, I like the word “revenge” in that it gives you a little bit of an emotional unction. I do it and it’s going to be done! I’m not stopping until it’s fixed.
The last phrase here in verse 11 that Paul gives us is this, “In all things, you approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” And I think that is the most beautiful testimony of true repentance in any circumstance. In all things you’ve proven yourself to be clear in this matter. Wherever there was something that needed to be righted, they righted it, they fixed it.
For the sake of the study though I think there are two other issues that we talked about that I want to remention here that relates to repentance. It’s not so much in addition to these things but it’s some other things that we can remember in continuity with these things. But from James 4:9 there’s two phrases there, “Cleanse your hands you sinners,” and “Purify your hearts you double-minded,” and that’s connected to 2 Timothy 2:25. So if you’ll turn to 2 Timothy 2:25, I’ll just mention these other two verses which we shared a couple weeks ago. This whole issue of cleansing and purifying are two different aspects. Sin stains my hands and myself as a person, I get stained by sin and when I am righting wrongs I need to be cleansed. And there’s an important understanding for us to not forget that when we’re dealing with repentance, part of that repentance always gets reconnected to the cleansing part and the cleansing is at the blood of Jesus Christ, it’s at the fountain of blood. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from our sins. So this aspect of cleansing is a very important matter in the process of repentance. Perhaps in America, we tend to think of repentance as only confessing our sins and thinking now they’re cleansed because I confessed them, but when we’re establishing repentance in it’s fulness that my sin still has to cleansed. It’s still the merit of the blood of Christ that gives me any forgiveness and that gives God the capacity to continue working in me that which He has worked in Christ. And so we have to deal in the cleansing issue and that is dealing my relationship with God, cleansing. The second thing is purifying your heart and I want to turn to 2 Timothy 2:25, “purify your heart you double-minded.” Double mindedness is a real simple term to understand. It’s not knowing who to fear. I’m going to fear God here and I’m going to fear man here, oh, but I’m going to fear God, but I want to fear man, and I’m just confused and I just go back and forth and I halt between two opinions and there’s this confusion of double mindedness and double mindedness cannot be cured except by the Word of God breaking through our hearts. And double mindedness is cured by repentance but it’s cured with the Word of God. In 2 Timothy there’s an exhortation to us who would be a servant of the Lord and it says, “The servant of the Lord,” in verse 24, “must not strive but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach and patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God per adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will.” In that little phrase there, there’s an important understanding between the connection of repentance and truth. This is a hard part of ministry. If you are a father, this is the most difficult part of being a father. I’m more sad at this particular aspect of fatherhood than any other aspect there is, “the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle,” and it’s so easy to get into a striving relationship especially with a strong bull headed kid that around age 13 and on it can really be a battle. But “the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle and apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” It seems to me the secret of this kind of gentleness has to do with my insight and understanding of what my role is. And too often when we’re upset and angry we have the wrong role that we’re casting ourselves in. We’re taking it personally, my own sense of well-being, my own pride in being a good father before others, all those things kind of work in there and those mingle with the genuine motives of parenting to raise up a godly offspring and preserve our children holy unto the Lord. And those things get mixed up but what happens is if you recognize that children are not opposing you they’re opposing themselves, that’s a really important secret to breaking through with this kind of meekness and gentleness. Those under your authority, those that you’re preaching to, those who don’t want to hear the Word, they’re not opposing you. You might say something and they might hit you with a rotten tomato dead in the face but that’s how some of the preachers preached in England back at the founding of our country back in those days. I’m not so sure how long I could preach if I was always being pelted with tomatoes from the crowd. But that’s not the focus. The focus isn’t that they’re opposing you. There’s the secret. It’s not me they’re opposing, they’re opposing themselves. That which is really theirs for their salvation, that which is really theirs for their own life, that which God would have for them to deliver them, that is what they’re opposing. They’re opposing their own help, their own deliverance. It’s like, maybe you can get a little word picture here, it’s like a guy that breaks through and rescues somebody in prison and knocks the gates down and breaks off the shackles and the prisoner said, “You fool,” slaps him in the face, puts the shackles back on and slams the door and says, “Get out of here. I want to have deliverance my own way.” “Guess I did that wrong somehow.” But too many times that’s where the little warrior that then spouts back in anger, “Well just sit there then. See if I care,” instead of recognizing the battle is in the Word, the Word of God reaching man. And this gentleness of instruction, this Word comes in. I want to just remind us this morning, the Word, the Word. What power do you have in your children’s life? The Word. What power do you have in means of exhortation in another person’s life? The Word. What means by which do you encourage yourself in the quietness of your own home? The Word. It is the Word, the Word that is near you, even in your mouth, the Word of faith which we preach. The Word gives us perspective from God’s view that we can have no other way. And when we have that view and we make it ours, we have all that God has given to us. And notice the picture then, “per adventure God will give them repentance.” This is something God grants, “to the acknowledging of the truth.” One day the Word breaks through and it begins to sink in and it begins to rip apart all the false understandings of my own deceit, my own sin and it reaches me. And when the Word reaches me repentance takes place, I change my mind about everything and what happens? I recover myself out of the snare of the devil. That’s an interesting picture. No where else in Scripture do we see a word picture where man can recover himself from the snare of the devil. It’s that guy in prison again waking up and saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t have to be here,” and he takes the shackles off, he opens the gate and he says, “Excuse me sir, you have no right over me, I’m leaving,” and he walks out and no one can stop him because he is the child of God, child of the King. It’s that picture of the Word giving people enabling power. I want to tell you this, false leaders, false leadership, false parenting, whatever you name it, false anything of instruction and authority is where we want to tear down the doors and bring out the captives and we’re the ones that do it. That’s not the ministry. It is Jesus Christ who is leading captivity captive. He’s the one that broke down the doors and the chains, they’re already broken. But what He’s doing is He’s enabling you and I to speak the Word of deliverance, speak the Word of correction, and it’s that Word of correction that comes down into the heart and transforms the soul and repentance breaks forth and I recover myself and I deliver myself from the snare of the devil by obedience to that Truth. That’s the model of salvation. I tell you this, that’s the church of Jesus Christ alive. Can you imagine for one moment what would it be like, what would it be like if every believer that you know was totally connected to God in a living kind of repentance where the Word was alive and the Word was going deep into his heart and where the Word was establishing in him these fixed places of obedience because the Truth had set him free. And where every believer can give an answer for himself for the hope that lies within him. I have a question, how many people here today could be asked a question by someone that someone thinking whatever the question was was of very important manner and walk to you and your answer would be, “I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my pastor, I’ll have to ask my parents, and I’ll have to study that out.” How much are we walking aimlessly and blindly, happily stupurous with a false sense of security because we see the world worse than we are and thus we are redeemed. God is dealing in changed lives and changed lives begin with a capital letter “R” repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and that’s what we’re walking in.
I had some practical applications to last week’s message that I wanted to give, but I ran out of time so maybe some other time I’ll do that. Let’s pray.
Lord we are a people in need of repentance but Lord I acknowledge that we hardly even recognize our need. We have eyes glazed over like the Laodiceans and we see that we’re fat and filled and we’re well dressed and clothed and we’re self righteous Lord, we’re happy in what we perceive about ourselves and we don’t recognize that we’re blind and we’re naked and that we need eye salve to recover ourselves. Lord in the mercy of Jesus I ask that You would grant to us for those who call on Your name sincerely with a true heart, that You would grant to us a repentance that is our hallmark of faith and Lord that areas of obedience and disobedience that we have failed to even consider, Lord that in Your mercy You would draw them to our heart’s attention, that You Lord would stir up the desire to repent that Your Word would become strong and clear and that we would have these places Lord of fixed confidence in You and Your purpose and Lord that our repentance may be complete in every matter, showing ourselves to be clear of disobedience to You. Help us to this end Lord, help us to walk with one another to that purpose and that glory. We ask in Christ’s name, amen.
