Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Niver. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. I've entitled this message, Repentance
Unto Life. Have you ever wondered what repentance
really is? Well, I hope that will be answered
this morning. Repentance unto life. In Acts
11, verse 18, we read, when they heard these things. Now, who is being spoken of? Well, they were the Jewish believers
who had heard that Peter had gone in and preached the gospel
to a Gentile. And they were opposed to this. The Scripture says in the first
part of this chapter they contended with Peter over this, and then
Peter rehearsed what took place in Acts chapter 10, how that
he'd seen a vision of a sheet let down from heaven with all
manner of unclean animals that you were forbidden to eat, and
in the vision He heard these words, ìRise, Peter, kill and
eat.î Peter said, ìNothing unclean has entered my lips, not so,
Lord.î And the Lord replied, ìWhat God has cleansed, donít
you call common.î And that vision took place three different times,
and then the sheep went back up into heaven, and Peter didn't
really know what it meant. And exactly at that time, some
men came from Cornelius. Cornelius was this Roman centurion,
and an angel appeared to him and told him, you're going to
hear words by which you shall be saved. And you're going to
hear them from a man named Peter. You go sin for him and bring
him here. So the servants of Cornelius come, let Peter know. Peter goes back with them, and
he tells the Jewish people who were objecting this story how
the Lord had brought this about. And the Lord had taught him that
he's no respecter of persons, whether Jew or Gentile. God is
no respecter of persons. And after they heard this, and
these were the things they heard, they were believers, and they
were wrong. You know, I was thinking about
this. They contended with Peter. Peter
didn't say, I'm right and you're wrong. He didn't say, I'm an
apostle, who are you to contend with me? He didn't say, God told
me to do this, so I'm not going to listen to you. No, he explained
to them over again what took place. And the Lord used this
to teach these men something. Verse 18, when they, these Jewish
believers, heard these things, they held their peace. They quit objecting. and they
glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted
repentance unto life." Now, that's where the title of this message
came from, Repentance Unto Life. Now, whatever repentance is,
And it's my prayer that we'll understand this by the ending
of this message. Whatever repentance is, two things
are said regarding repentance in this passage of Scripture.
Number one, it's the gift of God. And number two, it's caused
by spiritual life. Now, before we get into what
the term means, I want us to understand that whatever repentance
is, It's the gift of God. Now, what does that mean? That
means you will not repent unless God gives you repentance. It's just like faith. Ephesians
2, 8, 9 says, for by grace you save through faith, and that
not of yourselves. That faith, it's not of yourselves.
It's not the product of your human nature. It's the gift of
God, not of works. lest any man should boast." You
could say the same thing about repentance. It is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The natural man
cannot repent, will not repent, unless God gives him this repentance. And the second thing we see on
the very surface of this passage of Scripture is that repentance
is the result or product of having spiritual life. Now, it's—I think
the King James Version, in my opinion, is the best version
of all, the old King James Version. And there are several reasons
for that, but here's one. In most other translations of
this verse of Scripture, like the New International or the
Revised Standard and the English Standard and so on, they say
repentance that leads to life. Now, that would mean that you
do something in your old nature that leads you to spiritual life. That is error. That is wrong. That is salvation by works when
it comes right down to it. You do something, you perform
something in your flesh, you repent, and that is what leads
to life. That's wrong. That's not what
the Scripture says. You see, repentance doesn't lead
to life. Life leads to repentance. If
you have spiritual life, you will repent. Now, in physical
life, what is the evidence of physical life? Well, you have
breath, and you have a pulse. You're breathing and your heart
is pumping. That is the evidence that someone's
alive. If they don't have breath, they're
not alive. If their heart is not beating,
they're not alive. Breath and pulse are the evidences
of physical life. Well, what are the evidences
of spiritual life? Faith and repentance. They go together. They're never
separated. The Lord said in Mark chapter
1, verse 15, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand,
repent ye and believe the gospel. Whatever's contrary to the gospel,
repent of it, change your mind regarding it, and believe the
gospel. Paul said this in Acts 20 and
21. He said, I kept back nothing
that was profitable unto you, but have taught you publicly
and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks,
repentance toward God. and faith toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, there we have them both.
And wherever you have the one, you have the other. And if one
is missing, the other is missing. They're two sides of the same
coin, repentance and faith. Now, logically, life, spiritual
life, must precede repentance and faith. Logically, God has
got to give you life before you will believe and before you will
repent. Faith and repentance does not
come from the natural man. It comes from God giving you
life, and then you believe, and then you repent when God gives
you life. So logically, life must precede
faith and repentance, but chronologically, they all come at the precise
same time. God gives you life. you believe,
you repent. There is no time of spiritual
life that you have before you believe and before you repent.
You don't have life. The only evidence of life is
that you believe the gospel and you repent whatever repentance
is. Repentance is unto life. Now, where does life come from?
Well, life comes from God. He is the author of life. You
don't have life unless God gives you life, unless Christ gives
you life, unless God the Holy Spirit gives you life. Life comes
from God. And every aspect of this thing
of life is given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. That's what the Scripture says.
Every aspect of life is given us in Christ Jesus. And included
in that is faith and repentance. I love what Paul said in 2 Timothy
2.25. He said, repentance is the acknowledging
of the truth. You change your mind, and you
now acknowledge and embrace the truth. You didn't believe the
truth, but you now do. Now, in 2 Peter 3, verse 9, we
read these words. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise. Now all of salvation is included
in His promise, that promise He made to save sinners for Christ's
sake. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward. Now who is the usward? Is it
all men? No, let's go on reading. The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count
slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Now, the
usward is God's elect. those who believe, those who
repent. It's not talking about every
son and daughter of Adam. It's not talking about all men
with that exception. People have used this Scripture
to teach that God wants everybody to be saved. Well, if God wants
everybody to be saved, everybody will be saved. It's not possible
for God to want something or will something and it will not
take place. He doeth according to his will in the armies of
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand or say unto him, What doest thou? God is long-suffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish. All of God's elect
will be saved. Everybody that Christ died for
will be saved. That's in the eternal will of
God, that will that cannot be thwarted. He's long-suffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance." Now, here's the big question. What does repentance
mean? It means to change your mind. Now, it doesn't mean that you're
just walking down the street one day and you decide, well,
I'm going to change my mind. I'm going to start believing. It
doesn't work that way at all. Think of this. Romans 2, 4 says,
it's the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. Christ
said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, Job put it this way. I've heard of thee with the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I hate
myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Repentance is predicated
completely upon seeing who the Lord is. When you see who the
Lord is, it'll change your mind about your thoughts about yourself.
You may have high thoughts about yourself and your own ability
and your own spirituality, but when you see who the Lord is,
that stuff leaves. I've heard of you with the hearing
of the ear. I've heard things about you, but now I see you.
I see who you really are, wherefore I hate myself, and I repent in
dust and in ashes." Now, the word repent means to change your
mind. That's metoneo, change mind. That's what the word means, to
change your mind. I've heard preachers say, well,
that's too simplistic. No, it's not. It's what the word
means, change your mind. Now, here's a very simple illustration
of this. When I was a little boy, I hated
tomatoes. I don't like the way they look.
I don't like the way they smell. I don't want to taste something
if it's even touched a tomato. If I see tomatoes, oh, I couldn't
eat it. I hated that when I was young. Now I'm an adult. You know what?
I still hate tomatoes. I do not want to eat them. I can't stand them. I despise
them just as much as I did when I was a little boy. Now here's
another food that I hated when I was a little boy, brussel sprouts.
I didn't like the way they smelled. I didn't like the way they taste,
texture. I mean, I just despised brussel
sprouts. I could not stand it when we
had those put on the table. But you know what? I've changed
my mind. Now, that is my favorite vegetable. Now, what happened? I don't know.
Maybe my taste buds changed. Something had to happen to me
to make me like them. I realize that. But my mind has been changed.
I now love Brussels sprouts. My mind has been changed. Now, if you ask the average person
what repentance is, they would say, well, first of all, you
need to be sorry for your sin. You need to acknowledge it. You
need to be sorry for it. You need to turn from it and
not return to it. Don't commit it anymore, or you've
not been sincere. That's what repentance is. Now, before I address that, let
me say we ought to be sorry for our
sins. and we ought not commit that sin, and we ought to turn
from sin, and we ought to not return to sin. John said, These
things write I unto you, that you sin not. There's never an
excuse for sin, Let me repeat that. There is never an excuse
for sin. My sin is all my fault. It's
against God, and there's no excuse for it. Now, that being said,
when are you sorry enough? If that's what it is, when are
you sorry enough? How sorry? Everybody's experienced
someone who said, I'm sorry, when you knew they didn't really
mean it, but they were trying to manipulate the situation. That never does
you any good for somebody to say, I'm sorry, but they're not
sincere enough. How sorry is sorry? And then let me ask you a question
that I want you to deal with honestly. How many sins are there
that you return to every single day? Well, I stopped this one. Well, I doubt that you have in
your heart. You still desire it. But how
many sins do you return to every single day? You haven't turned
from them. Oh, you intend to. You say you
will, but you don't. You don't. That's just being
honest. If that's what repentance is, being sorry and not committing
that sin anymore, nobody listening to me has repented, you haven't
repented, nor has anyone else. That is not what repentance is. Now, let me read you a Scripture
out of Proverbs 28, and I want you to see what you think about
this. Proverbs 28, verse 13 says, He that covereth his sins, shall not prosper. But whoso
confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Now, somebody
says, that seems to be contradicting what you just now said. In order
to have mercy, you're going to first have to confess your sins
and then forsake them. And until you confess them and
forsake them, you're not going to be given mercy. Now, understand
that everything in the Bible has to be thrown at other passages
in the Bible. You can't take a passage of Scripture
and say, see, it's teaching this, if it contradicts salvation by
grace or salvation by Christ. Now, in this passage of Scripture,
if I look at that and I interpret it, well, in order for me to
have mercy, I'm first going to have to confess my sins and then
forsake them, and then I'll have mercy. You know what that is?
That's salvation by works. That's all that is. Well, isn't
that what it says? Well, remember I said something
about a King James. If you've got a King James version,
it says, He that covers his sins shall not prosper them, but whoso
confesseth and forsaketh them. In the King James, that them
is in italics. That lets us know it's not in
the original. And actually, when you put that
them in there, it does sound like you need to first confess
your sins and then forsake your sins, and then when you do that,
you'll have mercy. But that's just another formula
of salvation by works. Mercy is dependent upon what
you do. That's a denial of what mercy is in the first place.
Whoso covers his sin shall not prosper. Remember somebody who
did that? Adam in the garden. After the fall, he made fig leaves
of—aprons of fig leaves to cover his nakedness, symbolically covering
his sin, trying to cover up so he could—God couldn't see his
sin. Now, anybody who covers their sin, they're not going
to prosper. They're going to be exposed on
judgment day. But whosoever forsaketh this
thing of trying to cover their sins, they confess their sin,
guilty as charged, and they quit trying to cover them, that is
the person who finds mercy. He's already been given mercy
to do that in the first place. So every Scripture's got to be
seen in light of the gospel. Now, what is this thing of repentance? Well, the Lord said, repent and
believe the gospel. Now, the gospel is how that Christ
died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. According
to the Scriptures, He put those sins away. Everybody He died
for, their sin has been put away. It's been obliterated. It is
no more. That is the gospel. You repent
of anything, any kind of thinking that's contrary to that. You
repent of any kind of thinking of salvation by works. Somebody
says, well, I need to try harder. No, you need to quit trying to
believe the gospel. That's what you need to do. The message of
the gospel is done, not do. done. Repent ye, change your
mind regarding everything that is contrary to the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Paul spoke of repentance
toward God. I've already quoted that scripture
in Acts chapter 20, repentance toward God and faith toward the
Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance is a change of mind
concerning God. Now, I know from experience,
my own experience, how often I've said in judgment on God.
What a contradiction in terms, but how often have I done it,
thinking things like, how could God let that happen? How could
a loving God send somebody to hell? How could God let that
tragedy take place? How could He let these people
suffer like this? How could God do that? What I'm
saying is I'm holier than God, and I'm more wise than God. I'm
sitting in judgment on God. How many times have I disliked
His sovereignty, hearing He's in control of everything, and
not feeling any safety there? But you know what? My mind's
been changed. I don't feel safety anywhere else. I used to dislike
God's attributes. I used to dislike His holiness,
His law. It's too severe. It's too harsh.
His judgments are too hard. I used to dislike hearing about
how God elected a people, or in Christ died only for the elect.
And I'd think, how could that be fair? Sitting in judgment
on God. Now, when you repent, you repent
of that. You repent of being God's judge
because you know you're unfit to be a judge. He is the judge
of the earth, and you have no business sitting in judgment
on Him. As a matter of fact, when you
repent, you love God the way He is. You love Him as He's revealed
in the Word, and you wouldn't change Him if it was in your
power to do it. That is repentance. When the
writer of the Hebrews is giving us the first principles of the
oracles of God, he speaks of repentance from dead works. You
repent of all the works that you thought recommended you to
God. You thought, if I do this, if I do that, God will accept
me, surely. And when you see who God is,
you repent of all that and you see every work is a dead work
until God gives you life and you're granted faith and repentance. Now, two words that always go
together are repentance and the remission of sins. In Acts chapter
5, Peter spoke of God granting them repentance under the remission,
repentance and remission of sins. When John the Baptist was preaching,
he preached repentance and the remission of sins, the baptism
concerning repentance and the remission of sins. When the Lord,
right before He went back to heaven, after His resurrection,
during the time that He was here on earth, He told His apostles,
you're to preach repentance and the remission of sins. Now, why
did these two words go together? Here's why. Everybody naturally
thinks that the remission or the forgiveness of sins comes
at the end of the equation. If I do this, and if I stop doing
that, I will have the forgiveness of sins. Wrong. The forgiveness of sins is not
the reward for what you do. Salvation does not end with the
forgiveness of sins. Salvation begins with the forgiveness
of sins. Your sins are forgiven for Christ's
sake, and you repent of any notion other than that. Now, the great
example of repentance is the prodigal son. Now, if you look
in Luke chapter 15, the Lord is addressing those Pharisees
who murmured because He was a friend of publicans and sinners and
received them. And He gave three parables, the parable of the
lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. And after the parable
of the lost sheep and the lost coin, He summarizes it by saying,
there's joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. So that
lets us know that this is about repentance. Now I'd like to read
the story of the lost son, the prodigal. Verse 11, and he said,
A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his
father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.
And he divided unto him his living. And not many days after, the
young son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far
country, and therefore wasted his substance with riotous living. The fool and his money soon go
separate ways. He'd lived a life of partying,
enjoying himself, had plenty of money. And when he'd spent
all, it was all gone, there arose a mighty famine in the land,
and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country. He joined a church. And he, I
guess the preacher of the citizen of that country, sent him into
his field to feed swine. He put him to work, salvation
by works. And he would fain have filled
his belly with the husk that the swine did eat, and no man
gave him. And when he came to himself, now that's repentance,
when he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my
father's have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father
and saying to him, father, I've sinned against heaven. and before
thee. My sin is all my fault. I'm not worthy to be called thy
son. Make me as one of thy hired servants." I wouldn't dare presume
his sense of entitlement had left. And he arose and came to
his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw
him. I have no doubt he was looking for him. He knew this was going
to take place. He knew he'd waste all the substance
in righteous living, but he was waiting for him to return, this
glorious father. You see, the father's the star
of this story, not the prodigal. And he rose and came to his father,
but was yet a great way off. His father saw him, had compassion,
ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said
unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight
am not worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his
servants, Bring forth the best robe. the righteousness of Christ,
put it on him, a ring on his hand signifying my eternal love,
and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf." And
let's make merry. Now that is repentance. He came to himself. His mind
was changed concerning his father. May God grant you and I this
repentance unto life. To receive a copy of the sermon
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