I'd like to just spend a brief
few minutes looking at the whole issue of repentance. The Lord
has set aside a whole chapter in Luke's Gospel to teach us
about repentance. And so my desire is that you
might have ears to hear, and you might hear what the Lord
says, and you might, when you come to deal with the issue and
hear of other people talking about repentance, you might be
drawn to say, oh, I know what that means because I know the
parables of Luke 15. And any time you doubt about
whether you've repented enough, and doubt about whether your
repentance is good enough and doubt about whether your relationship
with God is fractured because you haven't repented enough,
you might just turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 15 and the Lord
in the most beautiful story. Someone said this is the most
beautiful story ever written. I'm not sure which one is, but
they're all extraordinary stories. Repentance is talked about a
lot. And if I quote some of the famous confessions of faith,
repentance is a penitent sin that grieves every sin, hates
it as to turn from them all unto God. So it's turning from all
of your sins unto God and being sorry for them. And it's purposing
and endeavouring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments,
which is the law. and you're not to be content
with general repentance, you're not to make some sort of general
confession of your sins and say it's over and done with, but
it's every man's duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins
particularly, and to make private confession of his sins to God,
praying for pardon, upon which your prayers, upon your prayers,
and the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy. That's works religion, brothers
and sisters. That's the religion of the elder
brother in Luke chapter 15. So here we have the Lord's descriptions
of repentance. Let's just read them together,
beginning at in Luke chapter 15. And the context, of course,
is interesting, isn't it? There is the Lord Jesus Christ
with these two groups of people before him, publicans and sinners
and Pharisees and scribes. And the end result of the Lord
teaching these men these parables is that the Pharisees and the
scribes went away and plotted how to kill the Lord Jesus Christ. They found these parables and
other parables which they knew to be speaking of them. They
found them offensive. And he spoke this parable unto
them, that they, verse 2 needs to be read again and again and
again, I'm sorry I missed it, and the Pharisees and the scribes
murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners, means he receives them
and he keeps on receiving them. That's what that ETH ending means,
he keeps on receiving and he eateth with them, he keeps on
eating with them. And he spake this parable unto
them, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he
lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness,
and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he
hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And
when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,
saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep
which was lost. And I say unto you that likewise,
in like manner, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth more than over ninety-nine just persons." That's people
who have some righteousness of their own, it doesn't matter
how much it is. If you have any righteousness of your own at
all, that's what the Lord is describing here. And they have
no need of repentance. Either, verse 8, either what
woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, does not
light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till
she find it. And when she has found it, she
calls her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with
me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise I
say unto you. There is joy in the presence
of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. So here are two stories in the
parable of the lost son, the prodigal son as it's so well
known and called, is another story of a one that was dead
and lost and is found. But in these parables, the Lord
Jesus likens this to the rejoicing in heaven and the joy in the
presence of the angels over one sinner that repents. So this is the Lord's description
of repentance, and this is the Lord's description of repentance,
which is causing singing in heaven. The praises that Norm just spoke
to us of out of Psalm 47. There's joy in heaven. And in
the parable of the prodigal son, of course, you find in verse
24 and 34, they began to be merry, and the father said, it's right
for us to be merry. So here are three parables, or
one parable, really, and they're all parables about the glory
of our God, and the wonder of his character, and the wonder
of what he does in saving his people, and the wonder of repentance. That's a whole chapter devoted
to repentance. The lost sheep was found and
he was carried home on the shoulders of the shepherd. He came home. The question I have, seeing this
is a parable about repentance, is what did the sheep do? What
did the sheep do? The sheep was lost. We all, like
sheep, have gone astray. And he goes after, doesn't he?
Listen to the words of what the shepherd does. He goes after
it, doesn't he? He goes after it. In verse four, he goes after
it. And he goes after it until he
finds it. And when it's lost, he finds it. And then he brings
it home, he carries it home, but he lays it on his shoulders.
He finds that sheep and he puts it on his shoulders and he comes
home. He comes home and he has a party. He says, this is rejoicing. And
this is what repentance is. Who does all the work? Who does all the work? God does
all the work. God does it all. That's what
true repentance is, and that's what true singing in heaven is
over, isn't it? It's the exaltation of the glory
of our God, of our great shepherd. It's a lost coin. The coin is
dead. It's in the dark. It's lost, and it's useless. You can't spend a lost coin.
It's useless. How's the coin found? The coin
is found by this sweeping, this lighting a candle and sweeping. And that's likened to the joy
in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. See, what did the coin do? The
Holy Spirit did the illuminating, the sweeping, the searching,
the finding, all done so that the coin could be found. The
coin, as with the sheep, could do nothing, and that's repenting
that brings joy in the presence. of the angels. And if you might
say, well the son seemed to come to himself, and it did say he
came to himself, he was set out as a sinner going home and he
cast all of his future upon the mercy of his father. And that's
true. But the lost son returning to
fellowship with his father is described by the Lord as a cause
for making merry and being glad. Why? Because he was dead, says
the father in verse 32. He was dead. He was dead and
he's alive again. He was lost and he was found. Who found him? Who turned him? Who turned his heart? That word
found means to come upon after searching or to find a thing
sought for. So who made him alive to see
who he was and who the father was? Who found him? According to the story, the father
found him. Why was the father on the hill
waiting for him to come back? Because he found him. And he
knew that he was coming back. He was there to welcome me home. And the returning sinner says,
make me one of your hired servants. My desire, his one desire, wasn't
it, is that you make me something that I wasn't by natural birth
and natural inclination. You make me a servant. You make
me your servant. That's repenting. That's repenting,
isn't it? The sheep was in need, the nut
was lost, the coin was lost, and dead, the son was dead according
to the words of the father, and he's been made alive again. See repentance, repentance is not
what we do, it is what God does in the revelation of himself.
Repentance is to change your mind. You change your mind about
your understanding of the character of God. You change your mind
about the understanding. You have a changed mind about
who you are and you have a changed mind about how God saves sinners.
He doesn't save sinners on the basis of their activities. He
saves them because of sovereign grace and mercy. He saves them
because of eternal love for them. He saves them and everything
that you ever have that God requires of you, He provides it for you. That's the glory of the gospel.
See, the 99 just persons in verse seven, some of these parables
are shocking, aren't they? The more you look at them, the
more shocking they become. The 99 just persons which have no
need of repentance. What does God say about them?
The just persons who have no need of repentance. They have
some righteousness of their own and they have no need of repentance.
He leaves them in the wilderness. He leaves them in the wilderness.
This world, this world of men feeling as if they have some
righteousness of their own and some need for God to reward them
on the basis of their just activities is a wilderness. It is just a
wilderness. No needy person is left in the
wilderness, and none of the Lord's sheep are left in the wilderness.
One of my favourite passages in all the scriptures is Ezekiel
34. If you've been a lost sinner,
Ezekiel 34 is the greatest description of the shepherd. It's the greatest
description of the good shepherd. And one of the things that is
remarkable about the sovereign grace of God is that it's characterised
by two remarkable phrases. God says, I will, and then God
also says, they shall. In this one chapter in Ezekiel,
The Lord says, I will 25 times. And the Lord says, they shall
20 times. These are the promises of our
God, aren't they? He says, I will search, verse
11. He says, I will search my sheep. I will search my sheep and I
will seek them out. In verse 12, he says, I will
seek sheep and deliver them out of the places where they have
been scattered in the cloudy and dark day." If you want to
know what the cloudy and dark day, you read the beginning of the
chapter and you'll see that the cloudy and dark day is a cloudy
and dark day that's brought on by the false teachers, the false
shepherds of Israel, who fed themselves and not the sheep.
And they darkened the knowledge of God by their wickedness and
their covetousness. It's a cloudy and dark day. But our God, he says, I will,
verse 13, I will bring them out from the people and I'll gather
them from the country. I will bring them into their own land
and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and the
inhabited places in the country. I will feed them, verse 14, in
a good pasture. That's the word of God. And upon
the high mountains of Israel, shall be their fold, and they
shall lie in a good fold. And in fat pastures shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock and cause
them to lie down, saith the Lord. I will seek that which was lost
and bring again that which is driven away. I will bind up that
which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick. But I will
destroy the fat and the strong. They are the righteous that are
left in the wilderness. And I will feed them with judgment. Verse 22, therefore will I save
my flock, that they shall no more be a prey, and I will judge
between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd
over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David.
David had been dead for 500 years when this was written. Who's
he talking about? He's talking about the great
David, isn't he? He's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
I will be, and he shall be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will
be their God, and my servant David, a prince among them, I,
the Lord, have spoken, and I will make with them a covenant of
peace, that's that covenant that David spoke about, it's ordered
in sure in every detail, and will cause the evil beasts to
cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness
and sleep in the woods. Every time I read that passage,
I think of the time we got lost in the woods of India. And in
the woods of India, we got lost in the forest out in the wilds
of India on the mountains, a long, long way from civilization, effectively. And we got lost in the forest
there one evening with a guy who was silly. And we had 20-something,
maybe 30 young girls. There weren't many of us there.
And you're walking through this, it was a wattle forest, believe
it or not. They grew wattle trees for tan and for timber over there.
And you're walking through these, we had no idea where we were
going. I had no idea where north, south, east and west was, so
I was absolutely useless. And in amongst the wattle trees,
because there are tigers around there, in amongst the wattle
trees are these bones, these carcasses of these animals that
the tigers are eating. And we have absolutely no idea
where we are. And I think of what the Lord
said, isn't it? He will be a shepherd to his
people. They shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and they'll
sleep in the woods with safety. And I will make, verse 26, and
I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. And I will cause the shower to
come down in this season, and there'll be showers of blessing.
God's people repent because of the goodness and the glory of
our God revealed to us. We repent. We repent. We have a changed mind. about
who our God is. We have a changed mind about
the way He saves sinners. We have a changed mind about
the shepherd. We have a changed mind about
the wonder of the work of the shepherd. It's perfect and complete. And every time, brothers and
sisters in Christ, every time you read an I will and a shall
in the scriptures, you write it down as something that's finished
and done and secure. It's repentance from dead works. It's repentance from dead works. The sheep is laid on the shoulders
of the shepherd. I love that picture. How does God bring you home?
How does God get you into heaven? He's gotta pick you up out of
this wilderness. He's going to lay you on his shoulders, and
he's going to take you into heaven. All this world, most of this
religious world will be singing about the verses in Isaiah 6,
won't they? Unto us a child is born, unto
us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Norm
spoke about it a little while ago out of Psalm 47. I love the
fact that the government's on his shoulder, and we're on his
shoulder. And if you're on his shoulder
and you're being carried, your feet don't touch this world. That's why the disciples were
told to wash their feet. You're clean. You just wash your
feet when you touch this world. But if you're carried on the
shoulders of a good shepherd, you're safe. You're safe in the
wilderness. You're safe in his arms. That's what he describes as repenting,
brothers and sisters. If you've repented, you're rejoicing
in the glory of God. And if you're not rejoicing,
you haven't repented. That's what the shepherd does, isn't
it? That's what the father does in our story. Okay, let's have
a break for a few minutes.