Good morning. You would open
your Bibles back to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five. The title of my message this
morning is true repentance glorifies God. True repentance glorifies
God. I've got something to say that
is of the utmost importance. Look at verse 32, Luke chapter
5. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. All those that the Lord Jesus
Christ calls will repent. All of them will. Everyone that
the Lord Jesus Christ calls will repent. Now the word repent,
if we use a simple definition from the dictionary, and kids
you guys listen because you'll be able to understand this and
it'll help. The word repentance or repent means to be truly sorry
for something that you've done. Now to explain this, let me give
you the example of what seemed like my entire life cycle as
a child. I would do something I shouldn't
have done, and then I would get in trouble for it. And then I would do something
that I shouldn't have done, and then I would get in trouble for
it. And that continued. I would do something I shouldn't
have done, and I would get in more trouble. And then I would
do something else and get in more trouble. And finally one
day, my sister came to me and said, why in the world don't
you just say you're sorry? And my response was, because
I'm not sorry, or I didn't do it, or it's not my fault. Now,
looking back, I think even as a child, I realized some of the
things I did were my fault. If I smacked my sister, it wasn't
a good justification or reason to say, well, she said something
mean to me. But it was very hard to say I'm
sorry, to be repentant, to repent. And then finally one day, I gave
it a try. I got in trouble, and as I was
getting in trouble for what I did, I said, I'm sorry, to which didn't
help me at all. And my parents looked at me,
whoever was in that situation, and said, you're not really sorry.
So then I thought to myself and went back to my sister and said,
well, I did what you told me. And she said, well, you have
to at least pretend that you're really sorry. So the next time
it happened, I got in trouble, and one of my parents yelled
at me. I said, I'm sorry. And magically, the punishments
got less. Or maybe I didn't get punished
at all. I learned really quickly the power of the phrase, I'm
sorry. Something that I didn't learn
at that age, but later on, and I especially understand as a
parent, when someone looks at me and genuinely says they're
sorry, it means a lot. As a child, me saying I'm sorry
to get out of a punishment isn't really repentance. That's me
just acting so that I don't get a punishment. So when I say true
repentance glorifies God, when it says in this verse, I came
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, the Lord
is telling everyone, those that I call will be truly repentant. Every child of God will truly
be sorry for what they've done. Now, what causes true repentance? What causes it? Now religion
over the centuries has tried everything. Wrath will not cause
true repentance. In Revelations it says how fire
rains down on people and their response is they blaspheme God. They are being burned up and
their response is, I hate you. This is response to the one who
is in control, the one who brings down the fire upon them, and
they do not say, I'm sorry. They curse. Fear alone will not cause true
repentance. Many people in religion have
tried to scare people into repentance. Have you ever heard the term
preach with fire and brimstone? to yell at people. You're going
to die if you don't say, if you don't turn yourself around. If
you don't repent, you're going to die. Well, we have plenty
of illustrations in the scriptures of that not working. Noah preached
for years and decades saying that God is going to kill everyone. A flood is coming and everyone
that's not in the ark is going to die. And no one went in the
ark except those the Lord put in there. In Amos, it says that
I've given you cleanness of teeth and no water and no food, nothing. You have so little food, there's
not a reason to brush your teeth. And yet their response says,
we will not repent. We will not say we're sorry for
what we've done. Not trials and judgment will
cause true repentance. What about Pharaoh? Pharaoh had
all the Israelites as slaves and God sent Moses to him and
said, you let my people go. Pharaoh said, who's telling me
that? And Moses said, I am the God of gods. The living God says,
let his people go. And Pharaoh said, no, I like
these slaves a lot. And so they turned the water
into blood and kept giving these things. And Pharaoh did the same
thing. He's like, oh, that's not good for the crops if the
water turns to blood. He said, yeah, you can take them
out there. But he changed his mind. He wasn't sorry for having
those people as slaves. He didn't repent. And they kept
coming one after another, and he kept letting the people go
a little bit, and then he'd say, no, no, no, no, I want them back
more. They need to come back and help me. Over and over again
that happened until finally God killed the firstborn son of everyone
in Egypt, had to kill their firstborn child. And Pharaoh was repentant
at that point. He said, let them go. He said,
I can't handle this sorrow of my son being killed, my firstborn.
Let the people go. But that sorrow and that repentance
was temporary. The loss of his own son wasn't
enough to make him say, I'm sorry. And he then went out and chased
the people again. Now, oftentimes these different
things, wrath, fear alone, trial, judgments, these things will
create what's called a partial repentance. Now, we've all seen
that before. We all see a partial repentance.
Oftentimes they're short lived. Say we get a trial. Say someone
gets really sick and they say, Lord, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Take this away from me. I'll
come back. And for a little while it happens until we get better
and then we forget about what healed us. Oftentimes, the repentance
is not real. How many people right now are
faking a repentance? Are faking that they're sorry?
I got so good at that as a kid. I can't tell you how many times
I was proud of myself. I got in trouble and my parents
said, you can't do that. And I said, I'm so sorry. I'm
so sorry. And the moment I got in my room
and shut that door, I thought to myself, I fooled them again.
I didn't get punished. But this is real. This is our
lives at stake. Sometimes we have a partial repentance
because of a punishment. I didn't say I was sorry to my
parents because of what I did. I said I'm sorry because I didn't
want another spanking. Abel, after he killed his own
brother, he shed his brother's blood. The Lord came to him and
punished him. And Abel's response was, this
punishment is more than I can bear. He didn't say, I'm sorry
for killing my brother. He didn't say, I shouldn't have
done it. He said, I can't handle the punishment. Take the punishment
away from me. man that Abraham came to in hell
that said, give me water, give me a drop of water. He said,
go tell my brethren, tell them what I'm going through. He was
repentant because of what had happened to him. He did not want
to say, I deserve this. I'm sorry for what I've done.
I'm a sinner. No, what he said was, give me
something to make me better. He didn't ask for repentance.
And then what about one more? What about the loss of benefits?
How often in life do we have a trial or something we go through?
We we lose a job, we lose money, our health, whatever it is. It's
like Esau. Esau, when the Lord took away
his birthright, when he gave away his birthright, he went
to the Lord and he didn't say, I gave away my birthright and
I shouldn't have. He didn't say I made a mistake.
He didn't say I sinned against God. What he said was, I want
my birthright back. He said, this loss of benefits
is too much for me. All of these things in false
religion and in our nature and our minds are things that we
think are repentance. But listen to what it says in
Romans 2. A verse says, it's the goodness of God that lead
us to repentance. We cannot repent on our own. In the same way that as a child
when I kept misbehaving and I kept doing all those wrong things,
I had no desire to repent until my father, my parents punished
me and taught me and punished me and taught me and made me
realize that what I had done was wrong. Now that's a small
comparison and it's such an insignificant thing compared to our eternal
life and salvation. But it's the goodness of God
that leadeth us to repentance. Now, an illustration of that
we will not submit on our own. It says the goodness of God does
it. Everything I've said in the past is things that we have done.
We make these decisions. I substitute taught one time,
and I overheard a high school student say that I wouldn't submit
for anything. And I thought, wow, that's a
pretty bold statement. And it went a little further,
and the curiosity got the best of me, and I said, you won't
submit for anything? They said, nope. And I said,
what about a million dollars? And they looked at me without
batting an eye and said, nope. And I was like, you wouldn't
just say that you're weak for a million dollars? Wouldn't say
it. No chance I'd say it. Said, what if somebody held a
gun to your head? Nope, not going to say it. I'm not submitting.
Is that not a summary of what we are like as sinners? We have
nothing. And what we deserve is death,
and that's what's coming to us if the goodness of God does not
make us to submit. Now, to elaborate on that, let
me say these things. Only a true repentant son will
bow before the throne of God because they want to. out of
respect and love, out of awe and worship. And when I say a
true repentant son, who I'm describing in that is what it says here
in verse 32. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. A true repentant son is one whom
the Lord has called. It's not someone who made a decision.
It's someone the Lord called. God can make you to bow. He can
force you to bow. And someday you will bow. It
says, every knee shall bow and tongue confess. But true repentance
bows without being forced to. The grace of God, the love of
God, the goodness of God that produces in the heart of a son,
godly righteousness and repentance. It produces godly conviction.
It produces godly mourning over sin and trust in Christ. It produces those things because
God made us to do so. Now, I want to quickly go through
six things that show us true repentance glorifies God. True
repentance glorifies God. The first thing is this, true
repentance that glorifies God acknowledges God's sovereignty. Turn with me to Job chapter one.
Job chapter one. True repentance acknowledges
God's sovereignty. Now, what is God's sovereignty?
That is God's all power to do what he will with who he will. Job 1. And listen, we know what
happens to Job here. Someone comes to Job's house
and tells him that all his sheep have died. Someone comes to his
house and tells him all his camels have died. They tell him all
his animals, all his livestock, all of them have died. Comes
and tells him all his children have died. They tell him everything.
And in that moment, look at verse 21 or verse 20. Then Job arose,
rent his mantle, his robe, shaved his head and fell down upon the
ground and worshiped and said, Naked came I out of my mother's
womb and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. True repentance acknowledges
sincerely and most heartedly and willingly God's majesty and
right to do with his own what he will. That's true repentance. They told him everything was
gone. Acknowledging lovingly that God Almighty can do with
me what he will. He has that right to acknowledge
he has that privilege and that power because he's God. That's
why he can do that. Eli, Samuel came to Eli. God came to Samuel and said,
Eli's sons have been reprobate. He said, they've been awful.
He said, and I'm going to kill them. Eli has not dealt with
his sons and I'm going to kill them. Samuel went to Eli and
told him that. Can you imagine that message?
Samuel came to Eli and said, God told me he is going to kill
your sons. Eli's response was, it's the
Lord. Let him do what he will. Now, if that doesn't tell you
that we have to have the grace of God to be repentant, I don't
know what will. That's true repentance. That's
a conversion and a submission. It's a change, but not just a
change of manners. It's a change of masters. A change
of mind, a true change of your mind. This is repentance. Repentance is submission. We
must submit. not because I made you, not because
you're scared not to, not because you want to, not because you're
afraid of the next thing coming, that next blow that's going to
come down on you, the next trial that's going to hit you, the
next punishment that's coming our way. We know that we're either
coming out of a punishment, about to go into a punishment, or in
the middle of one. We know where we're at. So not
because we're scared of what's coming next. We repent because
it's God, and we let him deal with ourselves, with us, because
that's who he is. It's God, blessed be the name
of the Lord. The Lord even prayed that way.
Listen to this. Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes, even so, Father,
for so it seemed good in thy sight. I thank you. That's even
what the Lord said. It seemed good in thy sight.
In everything, give thanks. This is the will of God for you. Can we do that? That's what repentance
does. Of course, we can't do it, but
if we're one of his sheep, that's what we do. I don't think that
I can give thanks for my afflictions. I just can't do it. But that's
what true repentance does. When we're going through a trial,
we need to look at the Lord. We need to pray to him and say,
Lord, thank you. Whatever you will to be done, that's what
I need. Because we know who sent the
trial. We know that God sent it. True
repentance glorifies God. They repented not to give God
the glory. It says in the scriptures, those
that repented not because they wouldn't give God the glory.
Repentance is going to give God the glory. Now we have a tendency
to think that our actions, and just because we seem to act like
it and say it, that we have some glory or that we deserve glory.
but man has never had even an ounce of glory. Anything that
man does that's worthy of praise or glory, it's because of God.
He gets all the glory. It's not going to give glory
to the church. It's not going to give glory
to grandma or mother who raised you right. Not going to give
the Sunday school teacher who taught you the glory. It's not
going to give the preacher the glory who won you to the Lord,
as we hear people say. But repentance is going to give
all the glory to God. That's who gets it. Secondly,
true repentance glorifies God by admitting God's righteousness
and His holiness and admitting our sinfulness. Show us who you
are, Lord. If the Lord shows us who he is,
we will find out really quickly who we are. Man does not find
who they are by looking at the law. False religion always wants
to hold up the law and say, look at this, look at the law and
see who you are. That's not how we see who we
are. We find out who we are and we see our sin when we look at
the holiness of God. That's how we see who we are.
We see it through the word. Isaiah saw the law, and in Isaiah
5, he kept repeating over and over again, woe is you, woe is
you, woe is you, woe is you. And then he saw the Lord in His
holiness and His glory. And in Isaiah 6, that message
changed real quick. It said, I saw the Lord, woe
is me. Woe is me. With the law, we have
tendency to compare ourselves to others. We try to build ourselves
up. But when we see the Holy God,
we realize who we are. We're just sin. Daniel saw the
Lord and His comeliness and His beauty, and Daniel, it says,
melted into corruption. Daniel melted. Righteous Job,
who we just read about, how much credit does Job deserve for what
he said in a moment of trial? Job, who feared God and hated
evil, yet he didn't see himself until he saw God. And once he
saw God, he said, I abhor myself. I hate myself. I'm a vile creature. True repentance acknowledges
God's holiness and admits our evil and our sinful nature. Now,
this is hard. This is a struggle. This goes
against our nature in every single way. As a child, no one had to
teach me that I didn't want any part of saying I'm sorry. Nobody
had to teach me that I felt like I should be right all the time.
I just felt like I was. The Lord showed His disciples
at one point, beginning there of what our brother read, He
showed His disciples His power and His might one night when
He went out to them and they hadn't caught anything all night
long. They wasted their whole evening. They caught nothing.
I mean, nothing. When it says nothing, this is
not they threw the net out and a couple little fish came up. No, they
kept throwing nets and there was nothing. They couldn't find
anything. And the Lord came and said, put
your nets down again. And they caught so many fish
that the nets broke and then the other ship came over and
two ships couldn't figure out how to bring up a load of fish.
It was so bad that when Peter saw the Lord and he realized
the power that he had, the control and the dominion over even the
fish of the sea, that he fell on his face and he yelled, get
away from me, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. He was so scared
in that moment. He realized who he was because
he saw the Lord. He said, I'm not worthy of your
presence, not worthy of your blessing. I'm such a wicked man.
Admitting who God is and his holiness and who we are in sin
is literally impossible for us to do ourselves. That's why I'll
repeat again, it must be of the grace of God. All this is from
him. We can't do that. I understand
having children. There is no way for me to teach
them and force them to do the right thing. I can't do it. I
don't have that ability. Now, if any sinner can truly
admit that God is holy and righteous and that in His presence is such
pure light that not even a glimmer of darkness can invade it, God
told Moses, you can't even look on me and live, let alone be
in my presence. If anyone here can admit that
I'm the definition of evil, that I want to contest Paul's claim
of being the chief of sinners, he's not right, I am. If anyone
can say these things, I'm so much worse than him, I'm such
a sinner. If anyone can say this, then God gets all the glory.
Anyone who can admit that, it's all of God. Now thirdly, we acknowledge
first God's sovereignty. We admit God's righteousness
in our sinfulness, our evil, and then true repentance glorifies
God by confessing the justice of God's judgment. Now I've used
this illustration throughout this. As a child, I didn't want
to put up with the punishments, but I understood the sovereignty
in my house was with my parents. So understanding that I had to
let them punish me. I couldn't stop them. I didn't
have the ability. And then secondly, I had to understand that my parents
were right and I was wrong. And until I admitted to that,
I was going to be punished. And now thirdly, we must confess
that the justice, the punishment that was coming down was right.
Now, whether it was or not, we're earthly sinners. So I'm not comparing
these two things in the sense that we have that ability, but
that's what we must understand. Our God is on the throne, He's
righteous, we're sinners, and He has the justice to do what
He wants. Let me ask you a few questions.
Will God punish sin? Yes, not only will he, but he
has. Will he punish all sin? Yes,
he will. Is God just to punish sin? Should he punish sin? Yes, he
is holy and man is sinful. He has to punish sin. He is not
just unless he does punish all sin. All right, so we're part
of the way there. Now let's see how far we can
go. This is gonna be tougher. Would God be just to punish our
sin? Now, it's pretty easy for me
to say God's gonna punish sin, but will he punish my sin? Would God be just to send us
to hell? Right now, right this moment,
open up the ground and take us just like he did with the sons
of Korah. Would he be just to do that? What about our sons
and our daughters? Would He be just to punish their
sins and sin them? Are we going to be mad at God
if He does that? If we can say that He would be
just to do that, and that we would not be mad at Him, then
we're truly repentant. Now, you want something else
we can't do apart from the grace of God? It's to admit that He'd
be just to do what He will with us and our children. That's true
repentance. Turn with me to Psalm 51. Psalm 51. Now, we're not repenting
unless we can not only justify God in his holiness, but we can
justify him in his judgments. It's not that we can justify
what he does when things are going well in the things he does,
but in the times of judgment, when we get judged. Now, we're
not saying here that we want God to punish us. I don't want
Him to punish me. I don't want Him to punish our
children. I don't want Him to punish anyone in here or our
friends or family. I don't want Him to punish anybody.
But what we're saying is, He is just if He does. He would
be righteous in whatever He does. Look at verse 4 of Psalm 51. against thee and thee only have
I sinned, this is David speaking, and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear
when thou judgest. It's my fault. It's our fault. It's your fault. It's our responsibility. If he sends us to hell, it's
our fault. It's my fault because of my sin
against him. As David says here, I clear him. He's just and righteous in all
his ways. We cannot hold the Lord responsible
for what we've done. He is just in what he does. We
have sinned against him. Let's face it. God is just. We can't be mad at him. Our God
deals in mercy. Anyone who wants to face God
and demand justice is going to get it. But I don't want justice. I sure
don't want justice. I don't want it for my kids,
my family or anyone here. I want mercy. I need mercy. I deserve justice, but I need
mercy. I need a whole heap of it. I
need more than anybody I know. I need so much mercy. But if
he doesn't give it to me, he'd be just and holy still because
I don't deserve it. Turn over a few pages to Psalm
130. True repentance justifies God
and His judgments. If He sends a flood right now,
right here, and wipes all of us out, that's what we deserve.
I hear people all the time questioning and finding fault with God. Why
did he do this? Why did he do that? Why are we
going through all this? It is simply his mercy that we
don't get the worst possible thing coming. That's the only
reason. If we lose our job, that's just
his mercy that we didn't lose more. It's only his mercy. We should look at everything
in the way that we look and read what happened to Noah in the
flood. We should look at it and say we deserve death and only
him grabbing us and putting us in the Lord Jesus Christ will
we have anything other than death. Look at verse one of Psalm 130.
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear
my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" If you mark iniquities,
who should stand? Right now, right here, in this
place, with a group of people from the outside look like they're
church-going people who believe on the Lord, who pay their bills
and treat people right and do all these things that people
would say, those are good people. All of them. If the Lord's going
to mark iniquity, anybody want to stand up? Anybody want to
stand up and feel good about where they are? I don't know
about you, but I'd like to crawl under a pew. I want to hide. I don't want anyone here, let
alone a holy God calling out my sins. I'd like to find a way
under a rug or something. I need to get out of here. We
are so high and mighty, and I'm standing here saying these things,
saying that I wanna hide from a holy God, that I'm shamed of
my sins, but you give me one hour, and the next moment I'm
in, and someone's gonna do something, or I'm gonna bump into someone,
and they'll turn and look at me, and I'll puff up my chest
and look at them, and what do you think, who do you think you
are, that you're standing up here saying something to me? Don't let us brag. Don't let
us be full of ourselves because outward claims usually cover
inward corruption. You want to go around, you want
to find somebody evil. Go around and find somebody who
talks good about themselves. If we want to stand up here and
brag on ourselves, and I'm so guilty of it, say how good we
are and how I've done this and done that, it's simply everyone
else is just going to see us admitting how awful and despicable
we are on the inside. God is just in His judgments.
We deserve the worst, and anything else we get is 100% because of
His mercy. All right, fourthly, true repentance
glorifies God by owning that it lies only with His sovereign
mercy to graciously save us or to justly damn us. Do we have
grace enough for that? I sure wouldn't have it apart
from the grace of God. The children not yet being born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God, according to election, might stand. Not of works, but of him
that calleth. It was said to her, the elder
shall serve the younger. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. These verses just tell us that
this was determined long ago. Anyone, anyone at all, that is
truly repentant, it was because we were chosen. We were elected. What shall we say to these things?
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he said
to Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I'll
be gracious to whom I will be gracious. So then it's not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but God that showeth
mercy. True repentance glorifies God
by owning this. A man or woman hasn't repented. They may have religion, But they
may have a profession, but they haven't repented until someone
acknowledges that everything we have, everything we know,
everything that will ever be is by the grace of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is totally by grace. Salvation
is 100 percent by grace. without any works on our part
or contribution on our part, but that God loved the sinner.
God loved the chosen, his elected, from eternity past and redeem
you at the cross of Calvary. And he called you by his grace
and kept you by his love. It is all of grace." Now that's
true repentance that glorifies God. That phrase, true repentance
that glorifies God, means that everything in a child of God's
repentance gives God the glory. gives Him all of it. Salvation
is of the Lord. No one was ever saved by accident. No one ever was saved by their
own righteousness. No one was ever saved by their
own free will. They were saved by the free will
of God. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. He didn't have to save me. He
did it because He wanted to. Many people can't handle this,
but it's what God said in His Word. He created the world, and
He is the sovereign of this world and in salvation. Out of all
this world, He chose a sheep, a chosen people, and He had the
right to choose them. He had the power to choose them,
and Christ died on the cross to redeem them. He said, my sheep
hear my voice. I know them, and they follow
me. And I give them eternal life, and they'll follow me. True repentance
glorifies God in this, and that's good news. So many people look
at election as bad news. It is good news for someone to
tell me God can do what I can't do. It's good news for someone
to tell me that there's a way out. That's such good news. Election is not my enemy. It's
the greatest thing I've ever heard. For someone who can't
save themselves to be told that there's a chance that you might
be saved, that's unbelievably good news. And then to read the
word and the Lord to teach you and to show you these things,
if God didn't choose somebody, then nobody would be saved. If
Christ didn't die for someone whose sheep, nobody would be
saved. Everybody would go to Now, if we want to keep the good
news going, how about this? If he died for sinners, then
he died for me because I am one. If he died for the ungodly, then
he died for me because I'm ungodly. Can you agree with that? If you
know you're a sinner and you know you're ungodly and you read
the verse of scripture that says, I came to seek and save the lost,
came to save sinners, that's great news. He says, come unto
me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. That's me. He says,
all you that are hungry, come. I'm hungry. He says, everyone
that thirsts, come to the water. I'm thirsty. If Christ died for
sinners, that's about the only thing I know for sure about myself,
is that I'm a sinner. That's the only thing I know
about myself. The grace of God not only sent Christ to the cross,
but showed me that I needed it. He showed me, and I'm so glad
He did. When it comes to salvation, I'm glad I'm a sinner. There's
no hope for anyone other than the sinner. Christ died for sinners. And we've got two more, and they'll
be brief. The fifth one is true repentance glorifies God by receiving
the grace of God as it is presented in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you want to glorify God in true repentance, kiss the Son Bow
to the son. God is going to honor those that
honor his son. The Lord said, whoever shall
confess me before men, I'll confess before the angels of God. We
must own publicly, openly before men that without any reservations
that Jesus Christ is our hope. That's our hope. That's all we've
got. He's our righteousness and our holiness. We have nothing
without him. He's our refuge. We must admit
that he's our strength. We are not ashamed of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Worthy is the lamb. Worthy is
the lamb. Let that be repeated over and
over again and preached in this place. Our brother talked earlier
about a situation he was in where someone was talking about church
and religion and in the moment just didn't have the words or
the gumption or whatever it is that we struggle with to proclaim
it. I honestly admit there are so
many times that I hesitate and I don't say something because
I think of my own well-being. Whether it's in work or friends
or anything, someone says something to me and it enters in my head.
If I respond this way, they may not use me as their realtor. I mean, is that not embarrassing?
That what I've just read and what I've just said, that the
Lord could overflow me with anything He wants to give me in an inkling
of an eye. And yet I'm scared that I won't
do something just because of just some pittance. But that's
who we are. We must own it publicly. We must be proud to say, the
Lord Jesus Christ is my only hope. My hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, I wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. And finally, the
sixth one, true repentance glorifies God by living the rest of my
life, the rest of our life, walking in fellowship with him and submission
to his word. you can come all the way to this
point through all five and not actually repent. True repentance
acknowledges God's sovereignty. It acknowledges His righteousness
in my sin. It acknowledges His justice in
His judgments. It acknowledges true repentance.
It confesses that God's power is to save or damn us. And it
looks upon Christ Jesus as the only Redeemer. but it also must
receive him and walk with him, fellowship with him. Turn with
me to Colossians chapter one, and we'll close. I feel like I say the phrase
all the time when I'm preaching, let me admit something, or let
me tell on myself, but I'll do it again here. The outline
and the points of this message came from a message by Henry
Mahan, or my grandfather, my Babal. And when I read the points,
the six points, my immediate thought when I read this 6-1,
that true repentance lives the rest of my life, walking in fellowship
with Him and submission to His word, that we must finish the
race. I genuinely thought, well, maybe
I'll just do five points. Now, that's pretty embarrassing
to say that. looking at someone who taught
me the gospel, who I look up to and trust more than almost
anyone else. And they said these six points, and yet I thought
to myself, I just don't know if I want to do this six point.
And the more I got into this, it lasted way too long, but at
some point it hit me through this, or it was shown to me,
that for these five things I've said so far, that I've just been
just hitting it over and over again, and I hope you understand
all that I keep saying, that everything that I'm saying is
all of God. It's all of Him. Salvation is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not acknowledge His sovereignty.
He has to show us who He is. We will not admit that He's right
and we're wrong. He has to make us do that over
and over again. Yet when I get to this in Colossians
1, look at verse 21. And you that were sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unapprovable in his sight, if you continue
in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel. That when I see that verse, and
it says, if you continue in the faith grounded and settled, It
makes me not want to have to deal with it up here because
I'm looking at those words and it says, if you, and for some
reason, everything I've said so far is completely dependent
upon God, upon our Lord. And yet when I read that, it
scares me because I think to myself, I don't want to say that
out loud because I can't finish it. I can't do that. But when
I realize That this is also 100% of our Lord, that we can't finish. We can't continue in the faith.
We can't be grounded. We can't be settled. We can't
be not moved away from the hope of the gospel unless the Lord
Jesus Christ makes us. Because He's holding us in His
hand, because we're in His bosom, we can't get away. And that's
why this is important. True repentance will persevere. If it does not persevere, it
was not true repentance. True repentance will continue
in the faith. And if it doesn't continue, then it wasn't true
repentance. No matter who it is, John said, they went out
from us. All those people kept leaving.
It doesn't say how long they were with them. It just said
that they left. The only one who finishes the race is the
one who crosses the finish line. Let me explain what I'm saying.
If you can leave Christ, then you never really knew Christ. It's so important for us to see,
again, this is not of us. When I say if you can leave Christ,
I'm not saying you personally can leave Christ. I'm saying
that if the Lord Jesus Christ saved you, you can't leave Christ. If you left him or you leave
him, it's because you were not saved. Listen to these in closing. If you can leave him, you never
knew him because there's nothing else to turn to. There's nothing
better. There's nothing sweeter. There's
no water sweeter than the water of life. There's no bread sweeter
than the bread of life. There's no lover more wonderful
than the lover of my soul. There's no foundation more firm
than the foundation which is Jesus Christ. There's no peace
like His peace. There's no joy like His joy.
If you can turn from it, then you never knew it. No way you
could have known it. There's no way because you don't
lay down life and pick up death if you know what life is. Once
you are shown what life is, or more importantly, once you are
shown who life is, you won't have eyes for any other. You just won't. And those things
show us that true repentance only glorifies God.