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Summary
The gospel of repentance and faith is explored as a foundational doctrine that believers never “move on” from. The gospel is not merely an abstract set of facts but is Christ himself — a royal announcement of the coming King and his kingdom. We are reminded that the gospel is an invitation to be accepted, a command to be obeyed, and an eternal plan to trust.
Key Lessons:
- The gospel must be communicated using Scripture — God’s Word is the incorruptible seed that brings about eternal life, not our own ideas or summaries.
- Repentance is a change of mind and heart that results in obvious, outward fruit — it is not a work we perform but a gift from God that turns us from self to him.
- Faith is not merely mental assent to truth but active, personal trust in Christ — utter assurance and reliance on the Son of God.
- Both repentance and faith are gifts from God that cannot be self-generated, yet both are necessary for salvation and continue as a pattern throughout the Christian life.
Application: We are called to be prepared to clearly explain the gospel from Scripture — both in short and extended conversations — and to walk through the open doors God provides for evangelism, trusting his power rather than our own efforts.
Discussion Questions:
- If someone asked you today, “What is the gospel?” could you give a clear, Scripture-based answer in both a brief and extended form?
- How does understanding that repentance and faith are gifts from God change the way we approach evangelism and our concern for the lost?
- In what ways do we still need to practice repentance and faith as ongoing patterns in our daily walk with Christ?
Scripture Focus: Mark 1:14-15 (Jesus’ first recorded words: “Repent and believe in the gospel”), 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (the gospel Paul received and delivered), Isaiah 55:6-11 (forsaking our ways for God’s ways and the power of his Word), John 5:24 (passing from death to life), Hebrews 11:1 (the definition of faith), Ephesians 2:8-9 (salvation as a gift of God).
Outline
- Introduction
- Never Moving On from the Gospel
- Identifying False Gospels
- Lesson Outline and Overview
- The Seed Is the Word of God
- What Is the Gospel?
- What Are We Saved From?
- The Work of Evangelism
- Questions and Discussion on Sharing the Gospel
- What Is Repentance?
- What Is Faith?
- Repentance and Faith Are Gifts from God
- Living by Repentance and Faith
- Practical Applications and Preview of Next Week
- The Point of Doctrine Is Worship
- Closing Prayer
Introduction
Good morning, everyone. Hope you enjoyed being serenaded by our worship team with some Christmas music this morning.
That’s just wonderful. It’s that season, isn’t it? We can feel it in the weather. Well, we’re going to continue this morning our series on defending doctrinal distinctives. Today’s lesson is in two parts and it’s on the gospel of repentance and faith.
My initial reaction is, where do you start with a green light like that?
There’s a lot to cover. May the Lord use his word to impress on our hearts what he wants for us today. Let me start with Jesus’ first recorded words in the Gospels. Now after John had been delivered up into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.”
We see these stated explicitly throughout the scriptures and implied in many others.
Another passage I’d like us to keep in mind as we study today is in Colossians 2.
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and being built up in him and having been established in your faith just as you were instructed and abounding with thanksgiving.
With that, let me pray for us.
Father, may the glorious realities and hope of the gospel be enlivened in our hearts this morning. May its eternal origins, its present relevance, and future hope be understood and sought in our understanding. Father, may we receive, communicate, and defend it faithfully to your glory, to our good, and to the salvation and sanctification of many for future generations. May we walk in you as we have received you by repentance and faith. Amen. Amen.
Never Moving On from the Gospel
Have any of you ever heard a phrase or an expression that might go something like this? We need to move on from the gospel and focus on discipleship. Has anyone ever heard anything like that?
One person. Okay. It typically happens where it used to be much more traditional to give a formal gospel presentation and what’s called an altar call. You might have heard that expression to respond to the gospel. Some churches have had a habit of doing that every week.
Sometimes I’ve heard believers respond to that by saying, “We don’t need to do that. We need to move on.” As I’ve thought about that over the years, I wondered, “Do we ever really move on from the gospel?” We do not. That’s an emphatic no. From the front row right here. What’s our theme verse for Calvary? Romans 1:16.
“Do we ever really move on from the gospel? We do not.”
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It goes on to say, in it, the righteousness of God is revealed, right, from faith to faith.
There is a sense in which we always need to grow in our understanding of and walking in the gospel. I don’t know about you, but when I think about this time of year and the coming of Christ and how amazing that is, I’m not over it yet.
I hope you’re not over it yet either. I hope this is a time where we really understand more about it, that it becomes more alive to us in the Christmas season. I hope we understand more of Christ and want more of him, and our hearts are just raised up not just in emotion but in true understanding and true worship.
Another verse I’d like us to consider as we proceed is important because I think there are a lot of misunderstandings of what the gospel is.
“I’m not over it yet. I hope you’re not over it yet either.”
This series, these two weeks, are meant to help us with that, to really understand and maybe even compare how some people speak of the gospel and compare that to what the scriptures actually say the gospel is. If our description of the gospel doesn’t match what Jesus said or what the apostles said, something’s off. I think we’ll find, as we really examine those things, you might be surprised at how some of the things that people commonly say compare to what the scripture actually says.
Here’s an example:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
That phrase “gospel of the kingdom” or associating the gospel with the kingdom of God shows up a lot in the scriptures, but I don’t know that it shows up so much in how we talk about it with people or how it’s commonly discussed.
It’s a royal announcement of the coming of the king. When people talk about expressions like lordship salvation, you ever heard that expression? It seems redundant because the gospel is all about the Lord and his kingdom and his coming. I look forward to unfolding that with you over the next two weeks.
Identifying False Gospels
We also need to not only understand the gospel, but we need to be able to identify false gospels.
Paul said this to the Galatians: “I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel.” Let’s stop right there and think about it.
They’re not just walking away from something that’s true, but what does it say? They’re deserting him.
“They’re not just walking away from something true — they’re deserting him.”
The Gospel Is Christ Himself
I think it was John Piper who wrote a book called God is the Gospel.
As we unfolded several weeks ago the nature of the Bible, we recognize that the way we talk about and understand the Bible is the way we understand and talk about God because it’s from him. God and his word are not separate things. I see this here with the gospel. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s not just facts on a page.
“The gospel is not an abstract thing. It’s not just facts on a page. It’s Christ himself.”
It’s Christ himself. I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another. Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a different gospel, a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say now again, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.
Some of you may know that while the scriptures say that one who believes a false gospel is accursed, there are those who promote false gospels who say that we are accursed. I think it’s in the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church, that says if we believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, that word alone, then we are accursed.
Not all Catholics know that or believe that. That’s the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
I’ve mentioned to you that I have a nephew who’s an Eastern Orthodox priest. I was reading through some of his recommended readings, and one said that if we don’t believe in the veneration of icons, which is essentially worship of pictures in that system, if we don’t believe in that, we are cursed.
I don’t know if you knew that.
I asked him about that. I love my nephew; he loves me. I asked him directly, “Do you believe that I’m accursed?” He backed off a little bit. I said, “Well, I’m looking at this, and this is what your beliefs are supposed to be, and you’re a priest.” It’s really interesting that even false teachers have no issue calling us accursed for not believing their doctrine. In love, we defend and proclaim the gospel because we want people to be saved and not cursed, don’t we?
In this passage, we see people posing as Christians, proclaiming a different gospel. We really need to know it. Some of you may know there’s a former Christian singer and author named Alisa Childers. She wrote a book on so-called progressive Christianity called Another Gospel, and she points out how it’s deviating from the scriptures. Some of you may know the book Christianity and Liberalism by Jay Gresham Machen.
Machen headed up Princeton Seminary just down the road, and as it started swaying, he started Westminster Seminary. It was in that process that he wrote that book. It was written in 1923. Last year, World Magazine put it up as Book of the Year because it is just so relevant. I finally read it and thought this could have been written yesterday because the battles over the gospel have always been the same from the beginning.
Lesson Outline and Overview
So here’s our outline. This is our topic review. We’re going to talk about some very foundational things this week and I think we’ll be a little bit more interactive next week and invite you to send some questions in. Pastor Dave has recommended some great questions to get us started, but I certainly invite your feedback on that. We’ll we’ll interact a bit more next week. So, what is the gospel? Right? Interesting to think about if somebody asks you, take someone who’s never he’s heard the he or she has heard the word but doesn’t know what it is. Asks you what is the gospel?
We need to be prepared to answer that.
What would you say? Right? Repentance and faith. That’s our title for this these two weeks. The gospel of repentance and faith. How do we receive the gospel? And then how do we live in the gospel? Right? Repentance and faith look one way for accepting, receiving, submitting to Christ, but they continue not for salvation, but for Christian living. We’ll get into that just a little bit. And then yeah, we’ll talk next week about assurance in the gospel. Can you lose your salvation? The short answer is no. We want to unpack that for you. And then how do we how do we contend for the faith in a way that reflects its character? Does that make sense? If the gospel is all about Christ, then we want to be Christlike in how we defend it.
“If the gospel is all about Christ, then we want to be Christlike in how we defend it.”
And I don’t know about you, I’m not I’ve not always been like that to my to my shame and have needed to to repent of that even as I talk to others about the gospel.
We’re commanded to be Christlike. Amen.
The Seed Is the Word of God
Thank you, Mike. We are commanded to be Christlike. The parable is this.
The seed is the word of God. If you look at Luke 11, you see the parable of the sower and the seed being sown on various types of soils, which represent the hearts of men and how they respond.
A very fundamental thing that we forget about sometimes is that the seed is the word of God. We need to be very good at wielding the sword of the Spirit and sowing the seed of the word of God.
“We need to be very good at wielding the sword of the Spirit and sowing the seed of the word of God.”
We need to be skilled at knowing the word of God and what it says.
Think we lost it there.
There we go. Love this. In 1 Peter 1:23, “For you have been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”
Our answer to the question, “What is the gospel?” must be from the scriptures, God’s perfect seed of eternal life. I don’t know if I shared this in Sunday school before, but I remember years ago at another church, there was a group of younger men. All these guys—Danny, you might remember this email exchange. One of the men shared a phrase or a description of the gospel from Tim Keller, which was not inaccurate. It was fine. I simply asked the question, “Is this the gospel?”
The short answer is no because it has no scripture in it. You cannot share that with someone with any expectation that eternal life will come up because you haven’t sown the seed. I want to be careful about this. This is not something legalistic; this is just acknowledging the reality of what God’s word is. I think today’s lesson is about really understanding the reality of what salvation is. If we are grounded in knowing what the gospel is and knowing what salvation is, it answers some of our questions. For example, can you lose your salvation?
You’ve been born again.
The Power of God’s Word
It’s here. It says here of incorruptible seed. Jesus said if you have him, you have eternal life. Eternal life, by definition, doesn’t end. When we are grounded and we understand these things, I think it really helps us and reassures us.
Look with me, if you would, at Isaiah 55. I think this is helpful for us on a number of levels. Isaiah 55, starting in verse 6:
“Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth, making it barren sprout, and giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will my word be which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what pleases me and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
There’s like three or four sermons in this passage.
Do we see the gospel in the Old Testament? Boy, we certainly do. Do we see repentance and faith in the Old Testament? We sure do. Isn’t that amazing? Notice what it says about God’s word. I sum up this passage by saying we need to forsake our own thoughts, our own words, and our own ways for his. That’s repentance.
If you notice the reality of God’s word, what does it do? It always accomplishes what God intends it to accomplish. It’s that powerful.
“God’s word always accomplishes what God intends it to accomplish. It’s that powerful.”
Do your words and my words have that kind of power? They do not.
I think this is really worth keeping in mind as we skillfully share God’s word with others, with the expectation that God will use it as his means to bring about eternal life in his way and his time. Let’s be confident and excited about that.
What Is the Gospel?
What is the gospel? I think it’s helpful for us to have several passages in our toolkit that can explain to people quickly. Sometimes you’re able to have a long conversation with someone. Other times, it’s very short, and you want to make the most of it.
I was at a wedding and reception last night, where I had a couple of really good gospel conversations, and I didn’t know how long they would last. I took out the good stuff from the toolkit and just put it out there and went from there.
There were no obvious responses to the gospel, but you never know when God might awaken his word to their heart. That’s exciting to think about.
Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel, which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received, and in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaimed to you as good news, unless you believed for nothing. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
What was Paul doing here? He was passing on not his own ideas or thoughts. We just read in Isaiah 55 that we ought to forsake those. He proclaimed what he received from God. That’s exciting. That’s what we ought to do. The gospel is a message to be received, delivered, and defended.
“The gospel is a message to be received, delivered, and defended.”
In Jude, beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.
I think we’ve seen from these other Scriptures that the gospel is under attack and needs to be defended.
Not that it’s not strong or powerful in itself; we’re not saying that. But God has used his word and his people, us, as the means to contend for it and speak up when we might rather shrink back.
This is what God would have us do.
The gospel is a treasure and a stewardship from God. It must be transmitted to others faithfully. We are responsible for understanding it and transmitting it faithfully, but we are not responsible for people’s responses. That’s God’s work. I think Greg brought that out in great detail as we talked about election these past few weeks.
These things go together.
How great it is for us to trust God’s word and his work in the hearts of people.
I had a terrible experience in college where there was pressure, and I don’t know that it came from a bad place, to lead people to Christ. The question was, “How many people have you led to Christ?” For me, it was nobody at that point. I was talking to a friend across our dorm hall, and I coerced it out of them. This was not me believing the doctrine of election; this was me trying to do God’s work in the power of the flesh. It was a terrible experience for both of us, and I think it really hurt our friendship. I vowed never to do that again. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience.
But how wonderful it is for us to walk with God, to be prompted by his Spirit, with his word, bringing it to people.
The Gospel and the Kingdom of God
What freedom we have in that. What confidence we have in that. As I mentioned earlier, the gospel literally means good news. It’s the proclamation of good news. It’s spoken in the New Testament of glad tidings of Christ and his salvation. It’s related to the kingdom of God, his reign, and his rule.
Something I think we lose sometimes in American Christianity is that we don’t tend to talk about that, partially because we don’t understand kings. We don’t have absolute rulers. The scriptures say that he is the one and only sovereign. Most people lived in societies where they had a king who was referred to as a sovereign. That person’s will was just done, was obeyed. We tend not to understand that it’s the rule which God establishes in the hearts of men when Jesus Christ is received by faith. It also refers to the future state when we will reign with Christ.
For Paul and the apostles, it refers to God’s eternal plan of salvation and the work of proclaiming it.
As I mentioned before, if we think about the lordship controversy and understand the gospel, why would that even be a controversy? He is the Lord. He is the King. I love Christmas music, and one of my favorite albums, which I was just listening to on the way here, is Michael Card’s Christmas album. He has a song called “We Will Find Him.” The chorus ends with the wise men seeking Jesus, stating that we will find the King whose kingdom is the heart. That’s where he rules and reigns primarily.
It’s pretty obvious, not to get into eschatology here, that at least from a societal or governmental perspective, he is not ruling in the world, at least not in an obvious way.
“We will find the King whose kingdom is the heart.”
But he is ruling in the hearts of his people and in his body. That’s just an amazing thing to think about. There’s a phrase, I forget which psalm says it, where he says, “Rule in the midst of your enemies.” That’s what God is doing through his church. He is ruling in us for a purpose on earth, and it’s a gospel purpose.
It’s a disciple-making purpose. The kingdom of God is an invisible, eternal, and everlasting kingdom. I think that challenges our faith, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s hard to remember that when we just look around us because it’s just not obvious. The ruler of the world is having his way in so many hearts, but not in the hearts of those who know him.
What Is Salvation?
Again, I challenge us to think about if someone asks you, “What is the gospel?” And then, what is salvation? I was amazed at how many times the word salvation shows up in the Old Testament.
For your salvation, I hope, oh Yahweh.
That’s the first time it shows up in Genesis 49. Psalm 96:2 says, “Sing to Yahweh. Bless his name. Proclaim good news of his salvation from day to day.” This is Old Testament. This is looking forward. Amazing. As we’ve seen from previous lessons, salvation has been God’s plan from eternity past, and it extends into eternity future. We get to be a part of that. Isn’t that amazing? I think we’ve seen it on full display as we’ve gone through Ephesians 1 and 2 in Iron Man.
We saw it on full display as Greg taught us about election these last couple of weeks. I hope that those kinds of truths yield more worship than argument. Does that make sense? Because they do assault our bride. They are often argued about. But God’s intention for these is our enraptured worship. They should fill our hearts with joy.
Salvation. I went to the Old Testament Hebrew word.
What’s the word?
Yeshua. Does that sound familiar?
It’s our savior. It’s his name.
Salvation. When the scriptures say the Lord is my salvation, that’s literal.
“When the scriptures say the Lord is my salvation, that’s literal. He is our salvation.”
The God who is our salvation. It says in Psalms that it’s a noun meaning salvation, deliverance, help, victory, and prosperity. It is primarily meant to rescue from distress or danger. It is being rescued from the punishment due for sin. We’re going to get into that specifically in a little bit. This word appears some 80 times in the Old Testament. It’s beautiful when you think about it. When you read things like the resurrected Jesus on the Emmaus road explaining all the things concerning himself in all the scriptures, you see it. We’re seeing parts of it. This is new but ancient at the same time.
What Are We Saved From?
Let’s talk about this somewhat unpopular topic. What are we saved from? Does anybody here struggle to talk with people about that? It’s hard.
It’s hard. Let’s discuss it.
2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 states, “Executing vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”
That should really put terror in our hearts, not just for us, but for others.
“That should really put terror in our hearts, not just for us, but for others.”
Paul said in Romans 9:10 that he had unceasing anguish in his heart for his kinsmen, his fellow Jews, because of this. We are not cold-hearted people.
We do not proclaim this kind of thing casually. We do not do that. But notice also, we will get into this a little bit later. One of the things that the gospel is, is a command.
This is for those who do not obey the gospel. Interesting. We see that phrase, “obey the gospel,” in a couple of different places.
We fast forward to Revelation 2:18. “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolators and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
There’s a lot I could have included here.
Jesus talked a lot about hell in the gospels. Some people are what are called annihilists. I think that is the right term.
The idea is that when you die, that’s it. Things just end. The scripture’s testimony is not that. It goes on. The fire burns forever and ever. This is what we’re saved from. This is what we’re saved from. Amazing. We do not want this for people.
I have shared with some of you a conversation that I had with my daughter, our oldest, who is far from Christ at this point. I asked her, “What turned you away from the gospel?” She said, “I don’t understand.” It’s a common question. I’m sure we’ve all heard something like this: “How can a loving God send anyone to hell?” It is a great question, and there is an answer to it.
The Lord brought to mind one answer from John 1. John 1:4 says of Christ that in him was life, and that life was the light of men.
There are many scriptures that talk about Christ being the source of life, being the source of eternal life. I said, “Honey, if Christ is the source of eternal life, then to reject him can be nothing other than eternal death because of who Jesus is. He offers himself to you.” That’s a very loving thing to say, but it’s hard for us, and I understand that.
I love this from John 5:24. This is one of those verses, in addition to 1 Corinthians 15. Put this verse in your toolkit. If you need to give maybe a one-verse explanation of the gospel, this is a good candidate. 1 Peter 3:18, which isn’t here, is also a great candidate. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death and into life.”
John 5:24: “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment.”
We are saved from eternal death. This is also an assurance of salvation verse because if this is true of us, we have passed out of death into life. That death is something you do not go back to. You are alive now because of the reality of what salvation is.
I think Pastor Bobby has mentioned this several times as we’ve gone through Revelation: “For God has not appointed us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is God’s heart: salvation. He offers himself freely to all. If we reject the source of life, that is on us, that is on those who reject. It is important for us to be very clear: What are we saved from? We need to be prepared to answer that question.
The Work of Evangelism
Couple words about evangelist.
Evangelism. Does anyone here consider that they have the gift of evangelism or that they are an evangelist?
Danny, for sure. I know that of you, Mike. I know that of you for sure, Leela. No question. Abigail. Yeah.
It just kind of comes out of you, doesn’t it? I’m jealous of you because I don’t have it in that way.
It’s not that I’m not desirous of the salvation of others, but you guys think about it all the time. And I mean all the time. It’s annoying sometimes. But you’re there to help us. It’s annoying to you, too, right? Okay. I’ll try to be less annoyed when you prompt me because Mike and Danny both really push me on this, and I appreciate it. Paul said to Timothy, “But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.” So it’s important to remember that God has given evangelists to the church. Some of you are that, but he’s given the work of evangelism to all of us. If nothing else, to be praying for people. The Great Commission in Matthew 28 was not just for the apostles. It’s for all of us. We are to go and make disciples, and we all have a role in that.
I will say a word about that with regard to quote “lordship of salvation.” It doesn’t say just lead people to Christ; make disciples. What are disciples? Disciples are followers of Christ or on that path.
“God has given evangelists to the church, but he’s given the work of evangelism to all of us.”
There was no such thing in the scriptures of someone who has come to Christ. How many of you have heard this? I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier. Maybe I don’t think I did. I’ve heard this so many times over the course of my life: “Well, he or she has accepted Christ as Savior but not as Lord.” Anyone hear that? I’m sorry. There’s no such thing because Jesus is the Lord.
You don’t get to bifurcate that, right?
And so, go and make disciples, right? Those who have come to Christ, grow them in their faith. There’s so much more I can say about that. Colossians 4:2-6 is a great thing to pray for those of us who are not evangelists. I think we need to pray this more. Pray for an open door for the word of God. And that really corresponds with what we’re talking about regarding the gospel. Not an open door for your testimony. That might be helpful, but you want to get the word in there because the word is the seed that brings about eternal life.
Lord, give me an opportunity for your word. I love what it says: that we would have our speech be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt, so that we might know how to respond to every person. Isn’t that great? So, we’re thinking about that all the time. Lord, how can this conversation be a gospel opportunity?
The Gospel: Invitation, Command, and Eternal Plan
And when it says open doors, it’s open doors. It doesn’t say kick down closed doors. Just a thought. We need to discern what doors God is opening for the word and be bold in walking through those. I want to challenge us, and challenge myself, to be more intentional in praying and walking through the open doors that God gives for evangelism.
In summary, what is the gospel? We’ve covered a couple of things. It’s an invitation to be accepted. That’s probably the most common way that people describe it, particularly in this country. Matthew 22:1-14 is the parable of the wedding feast where the invitation goes out to all. But we’ve also seen from 2 Thessalonians 1 that it’s a command to be obeyed. We lose that sometimes, don’t we? God has commanded all people everywhere to repent, as stated in Acts 17:30. The gospel is a command.
I think we’ve established that it’s an eternal plan to trust. This is God’s plan; this is not our idea. This is God’s plan from eternity past and it extends into eternity future. I love those passages in Acts where the apostles and the early witnesses give a brief history of what God was doing through Israel and what he’s now doing through Christ. It’s amazing to read those things. Those are wonderful commentaries for us on what God was doing in the Old Testament. In Acts 17, Paul was speaking to essentially atheists and idol worshippers. God has so worked that people would seek him, although he is not far from each one of us, meaning he is right there.
He’s accessible to all through the gospel. Those are helpful things to think about: the gospel is an invitation, it is a command, and it is an eternal plan.
“The gospel is an invitation to be accepted, a command to be obeyed, and an eternal plan to trust.”
Questions and Discussion on Sharing the Gospel
Before we get into repentance in a formal way, any comments or questions about what we’ve covered so far?
Glenda has a question.
Yeah.
I missed the opportunity. I said to her, “Yeah.”
Glenda was explaining how she doesn’t consider herself an evangelist, but she wants to take advantage of every opportunity that’s presented to her. She’s missed some opportunities. It’s a good thing we believe in election because if others’ salvation is dependent on our faithfulness, that’s a bad deal for everyone, isn’t it? This doesn’t excuse our responsibility. We can’t fully reconcile our responsibility and God’s sovereignty.
That’s God’s problem. We just trust that. I’ve heard people say things about repentance and faith.
This is a really interesting conversation. I’ve had several conversations like this. You’ve heard the expression, “I’ve blown my testimony.” I’ve done that. I’ve sinned in a way. Well, what about repentance and faith?
If you sinned in front of someone, don’t you have an opportunity to demonstrate repentance and faith? That’s kind of a gospel opportunity. I’m not suggesting it as a strategy, but in God’s sovereignty, we can do that. How many people, as they go through life, if they give offense, ask for forgiveness? How common is that? It’s not that common. Come on, folks. What a testimony that is if we do that.
“If you sinned in front of someone, don’t you have an opportunity to demonstrate repentance and faith?”
I’ve asked people for their forgiveness, and they don’t even know what to do with that. It’s like they’ve never heard anybody do that before. Praise the Lord.
Discerning Open Doors for the Gospel
That’s countercultural. That’s us bringing the light of Christ. Don’t underestimate, if I may say so, the power of your sin as a gospel opportunity. Again, not a strategy, but in God’s grace, it’s an opportunity, right, Mike? It is.
Any other questions or comments? Ria, the timing is important for sharing the gospel. I think some of our evangelists might say it’s all the time. That’s okay. I’m going to… Yeah, Mike, your thoughts?
Just a quick answer on that. I was actually laughed at and kind of mocked a little bit for this because it came out this way. I witnessed to a Muslim man in our restroom at our office building.
Thank you, Jonathan.
I recently witnessed to a Muslim man in the restroom of our office building, and I drew a little bit of a “what are you doing?” kind of reaction. But it wasn’t while we were going to the bathroom; we were washing our hands. He made a comment to me. I said hello to him, which you always do to open up a door. His comment was a wide-open door to start talking about Christ and salvation.
Now, do I speak to everybody about the gospel in the bathroom? I do not. If I’m witnessing to somebody in Bagel Garden or in the Wawa or in the shop, it doesn’t mean I’m witnessing to everybody in that store, but for that particular opportunity, it presented itself.
Now, that’s a great question because we have to discern what God is doing, right? He knows the hearts of all people, and we know that God prepares hearts to hear the gospel. A lot of us will give kind of a vague answer, then maybe a specific answer. We just need to walk in the Spirit and ask God to guide us. We’re going to talk about that a little bit later, that he rules our lives and prompts us at times. Sometimes it’s an obvious example. I had a friend ask me one time, “Mark, what’s it going to cost me to follow Christ?”
I wish more people would ask that question. Is this an open door? Yeah, that’s a really obvious open door, right? The time where I forced it with my friend in the dormitory was not an open door. He was very explicit that he didn’t want to talk to me about this.
At my 15th or 20th high school reunion, because yes, I’m older, I was there, and my high school classmates knew that I was a believer. Caleb Dagnel’s mom was there. She and I were in the same class, and there were some believers present. We were all kind of there, praying that we would have an opportunity.
One of the guys in our class, it was a very big class, was someone I didn’t know had come to Christ since high school. He was a musician. He said, “I wrote a song that I’d love to share,” and it was great. In one of the sentences, he mentioned meeting Jesus, and he put it in the song in a really winsome way. To me, I think it opened up an opportunity.
Then he ended the song, and instead of sitting down, he’s a brother in Christ, so I don’t want to disrespect him, but he droned on in a way that wasn’t helpful. I would say for 20 or 25 minutes, maybe more. The crowd was just groaning. This was him forcing something that I don’t think was an opportunity. At the end, he said, “I’ll be sitting over here, and if anyone wants to talk about this, I’ll be right over here.” Nobody went to talk with him except for me.
We had an interesting conversation about the gospel and open doors. That was the conversation, so I just share that. Maybe that’s helpful. Jesus used phrases like “throwing your pearls before swine.” I don’t see a pattern in the gospels of chasing people who didn’t want to know. Of course, Jesus was bold, and the apostles were bold in proclaiming the gospel, but I don’t see them chasing people who didn’t want to know. I’m open to being corrected here, but I don’t see that. Is that helpful?
“I don’t see a pattern in the gospels of chasing people who didn’t want to know.”
What about a person who’s lost all mental capacity? I think we need a trained professional for that question.
I just don’t know. Michael, Mike has the answer though.
As long as they can hear, keep the love.
The nursing home ministry, by the way.
Amen. That’s a great one. You just don’t know. Friends I’ve known who’ve had kids who are mentally impaired, you just don’t know what they understand.
Do we trust the power of God in those situations? Yeah, we do.
Even Alzheimer’s patients or coma patients, we find out later that if they come out, they actually… I mean, if the spirit’s there, I don’t mean the Holy Spirit, but if there’s something there, we don’t know what God can do.
And how good it is for us to bathe ourselves in the truths we’ve discussed so far and trust God’s power to do that. We don’t have the power to do anything there, but if we have an opportunity, we can trust God’s power to do that because he knows the hearts of all, and he always does the right thing.
What Is Repentance?
That’s such a wonderful and compassionate question. Thank you. All right, repentance.
What is repentance? I think there are some misconceptions here. Pastor Dave’s sermon has addressed this a couple of times from 1 Corinthians 7, which really unfolds this. I commend them to you. But in short, repentance is a change of mind. A change of mind that has results, but formally speaking, it’s a changing of direction. From a gospel perspective, repentance is turning from self to God. We saw that in Isaiah 55.
“Repentance is a change of mind — from a gospel perspective, turning from self and to God.”
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. That is an excellent definition of repentance.
The Fruit of Repentance
Turning from self to God involves a clear denial of self that must happen in submission to Him. It occurs in the mind but then has outward results. John the Baptist would say, “Therefore, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” The fruit of repentance isn’t the repentance itself. We have to be really clear on that. When I have conversations like we’re having today about the gospel of repentance and faith, people have accused me, and maybe they’ve accused you, of saying, “Well, you’re asking them for a work that earns their salvation.” We’re not.
That’s why we have to be really clear about it. Repentance is a change of mind, really a change of heart in the formal sense that results in very obvious outcomes. I think it’s very obvious. We just read this. I’m convinced, and this might sound a bit harsh, but I think it’s true: if you have to wonder if someone has repented, my conviction is they haven’t. It becomes a very obvious thing. I’ll give an example. You see it as a pattern in the Scriptures. As people followed Jesus, what did they do? They immediately gave up something. It wasn’t like, “Maybe I’ll think about it.” That’s evidence of repentance.
“If you have to wonder if someone has repented, my conviction is they haven’t. It becomes obvious.”
Betty and I discipled a couple at a former church. They had started coming to church, and God was working on them. They were living together and engaged, and they came to Christ. They immediately thought, “Well, we’re fornicating. We can’t keep doing that.” Nobody told them that other than the word of God becoming alive in their hearts. We were there as spectators as all this was happening.
We got to know them shortly after they came to Christ. They separated and moved into different apartments. Their families thought they were absolutely crazy. They talked to us and said, “Well, we’re engaged, but our wedding isn’t for another year.” He said, “Well, you can’t last another year just practically and be sexually pure.” So they got married legally and then had the ceremony later. It was an incredible testimony to their families, who thought they were insane. No question about this. But that kind of thing is very clear evidence of repentance: hunger for the word of God, signs of new life. We see these things, Denise.
That was the power of the Holy Spirit. Betty and I didn’t do that. The church they were in didn’t do that. Amazing. I love this verse that I just read. One, there’s the expectation of abundant pardon and forgiveness when we repent.
Repentance and Refreshing
Let’s take the negative out of repentance. Repentance is seen as negative because it assaults self and pride, which it is designed to do.
That’s a good thing. In the book of Acts, I can’t remember the reference; maybe someone here knows it. It says, “Repent and return that times of refreshing may come to you from the presence of the Lord.” In Proverbs 3, there’s a verse that says that as we repent, well, I’m just going to look it up because it’s not coming to me. It’s in Proverbs 3, and I think verses 7 and 8.
Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh and turn away from evil.
Right. That’s repentance. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. This is such a wonderful thing for us to always associate repentance and refreshing. Always associate repentance and life. That applies not only to coming to Christ but in our lives, right? I haven’t run out of things to repent of. Have you? No.
“Always associate repentance and refreshing. Always associate repentance and life.”
This is a pattern for our lives. A little bit more on repentance.
I’m glad we have two weeks on this because we might not get through this.
Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross daily and follow me.” It’s a denial of self. A clear denial of self. That was very clear to me at the age of eight when I came to Christ; I was no longer to run my life. He was going to be on the throne of my heart, and he called the shots.
That was really clear. I had to get down from the throne. My ability to run my own life was gone, and therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
As we said earlier, repentance is not a work but an internal change of mind whose results are obvious.
What Is Faith?
Since this is on repentant faith, let me at least get through the definition of faith, and we may have to save some of these slides for next week. Let’s see how we do.
Faith, to win over, to persuade, subjectively means firm persuasion, conviction, belief in the truth, veracity, reality, or faithfulness. Objectively, it means that which is believed, the doctrine, the article, the received articles of faith. And then the Lord helps us with his word.
What’s the definition of faith? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
It is certainty. We live in an age where certainty is under attack, even by Christians.
I heard one Christian leader say, “Well, when you talk about faith and certainty, I get nervous. Those two things don’t go together.” In what way don’t they go together? Faith is certainty. I’m reading a book by Herman Bavink, an 18th and 19th century theologian, called The Certainty of Faith. It just unpacks what this is.
So when we think about faith, the best way I can summarize it is that it is utter assurance.
Faith Is More Than Mental Assent
It’s not merely mental assent to something. I believe certain things, right? Jesus said that the demons believe, or I think James said this: the demons believe and shudder. You can ascend to the right things and not be saved. Do you rely on them? John 5:24, which we read, states, “He hears my word and believes in him who sent me.” The sense is, it’s not in every translation, but it’s the difference between believing and believing in. Some of you may have heard what is maybe a trite analogy, but I think it’s helpful. How do you know if you’ve believed in something?
Well, it’s your level of trust in it, right? You might have heard the story of the guy going across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. There’s a whole crowd there. He comes back and says, “Hey, how many of you believe that I can do it again?” The crowd goes nuts. He takes out a wheelbarrow, puts it on the wire, and says, “Get in.” That will tell if you really believe that he can do it. That’s putting your money where your mouth is when we think about faith. That’s what that is.
“It’s the difference between believing and believing in — active trust, not merely mental assent.”
It’s an active trust. It’s not merely mental assent. I think a lot of times, maybe not in this crowd, but maybe in some believers, they will say that merely mental assent to the truth of the gospel is enough to be saved. That’s not what the scriptures teach.
Repentance and Faith Are Gifts from God
Two other things that I want to emphasize before we leave this morning are that repentant faith cannot be self-generated.
It can’t. They are gifts from God. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. We talked about this in Iron Man. What is the gift of God?
Well, that’s the whole thing that just precedes it. It’s grace being saved through faith. All of that is a gift from God. That is not something that we are capable of generating. Getting back to God’s sovereignty and salvation, Jesus said in John 3:3, unless you are born again, you cannot even see the kingdom of God. Right? So unless God does something in you, you can’t respond.
In one sense, evangelism consists of telling blind people to look at things. That seems pretty futile unless you trust God to open the eyes of people, right? To make them alive.
“Evangelism consists of telling blind people to look at things — unless you trust God to open their eyes.”
This is one of several verses that talk about repentance being a gift. This one, God exalted to his right hand as a leader and a savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
Again, this is one of several verses that talk about repentance itself being a gift.
We cannot generate these things by our sheer effort, but both are necessary for salvation.
Both are. I would say we’ve got some time to unpack this next week. How do you distinguish repentance and faith?
If someone says that they believe, how do you tell? Some of it is the fruit that comes after it. But repentance and faith are well described as two sides of the same coin. In Romans 10:9-10, if you confess Jesus as Lord, it’s kind of a repentance kind of thing, right? And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Living by Repentance and Faith
Both things really kind of go together for salvation. All right, I know I’m going kind of fast. This is quick. I think we refer to this as we’ve received, so walk right. We don’t get saved over and over again, but we live by faith and we live in repentance. That’s a continual cycle in our lives. As we’ve received by repentance and faith, so we walk. How have we received through repentance and faith? How do we walk by repentance and faith? I think that’s worth maybe more consideration than I can give right now. Maybe we can unpack that a little more next week.
These two passages are helpful for us.
Living the gospel is an example of living in repentance and faith. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. I think we mentioned this earlier.
Has anyone here run out of things that they need to deny in themselves? Things to repent of? Anyone?
Yeah, it’s a continual walk of denying self.
Jesus said in John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground, it remains by itself, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” That refers specifically to his death, burial, and resurrection, but it also refers to how we are to live. In 2 Corinthians 4, it says that we are always carrying about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. He’s referring to that walk of how we suffer well, how we deny self, and how we follow Christ’s example in that way as well.
This is a great verse about this and about living in faith. Some of you may be familiar with this: I’ve been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
We live by faith in him. That’s why when it says in Romans 1 that it is from faith to faith, right? It is initiated by faith and is sustained by faith. This is how we live. It’s a wonderful journey for us. What? I might just make it. Thank you for bearing with me.
I think if you haven’t lately, this is probably a good time to refresh yourself on Calvary’s statement of faith. Chapter 4.3 refers to regeneration, which is most on point to what we’re talking about today. The previous point was on election, which covered in large part what Greg taught the last couple of Sunday school weeks. For those of you who have recently been through membership, this might be fresher in your mind, but this is worth reviewing on your own. I will just put it out there and commend it to you.
I will reiterate this: a solid understanding of salvation, what salvation is, answers a lot of our questions and equips us to clearly communicate it to others.
Practical Applications and Preview of Next Week
With just a couple of minutes left, let me suggest some implications and applications and wet your appetite for more interaction next week.
As I asked earlier, if someone were to ask you today, what is the gospel? How would you answer?
Colossians 4 and 1 Peter 3 tell us that we need to be ready. We need to be ready. What’s interesting in 1 Peter 3 is to sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready. You can’t get away from the lordship of salvation; it’s kind of built in. Isn’t that interesting? I would suggest being ready for a short answer with passages like John 5:24 or 1 Peter 3:18 if you just have a couple of moments. But be prepared for a longer answer. When my friend asked me, “What’s it going to cost me to follow Jesus?” that was a two-hour lunch conversation. And that has continued. But be ready for the short answer and the long answer.
“Be ready for the short answer and the long answer.”
If someone were to ask you today, “What is salvation?” how would you answer? What are we saved from? What are we saved to?
Good question. We need to be prepared for it. We need to be able to talk about hell in a loving way, if I could just put it that way.
How gracious of our God to warn us of that. What a challenge to us.
What’s our heart for people? Do we have unceasing anguish in our heart for those around us like Paul did? My desire is for their salvation. He said, “Is that our desire?” There are people who can challenge us. If we’re honest, sometimes we desire the opposite. If we understand what God has done for us, there’s no room for such an attitude.
Are repentance and faith works that we can perform? I think we’ve established no. But that’s worth really thinking about why that’s true. This is more of a question and answer with believers because I think there are a fair number of my fellow believers who are really confused about this. The wedding I attended yesterday was for my closest friend’s daughter, and he and I have really gone back and forth on this. He is an evangelist and is in full-time ministry, but we’re just not on the same page as to what these things mean. We have very interesting conversations about that, and maybe you have as well.
For next week, I think we’re going to get into what truths are essential to communicate the gospel. A little preview is that as I’ve compared what the scriptures say the gospel is, how many of you have been through the Calvary Grace evangelism course that we did here? Anyone?
A couple of you. It’s excellent, and we have those materials. Two things we notice in it that really stand out and distinguish it from many gospel presentations. First off, it starts with God. I know that sounds obvious, but the gospel presentations that I grew up with started with man: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You’re a sinner and you’re estranged from God. Can we just back up a minute and say, who is God? What are his standards? Let’s talk about that.
Increasingly, in an age where we don’t have a common culture where people understand faith generally or Christianity specifically, we need to back up and talk about that. On the other end is the response. How many of you have heard things like, “Just pray this prayer and then welcome to the kingdom of God”? I’m wondering, “Where’s that?” We need to be really clear about that.
I’ve mentioned this earlier: what is lordship salvation and is it biblical? There’s no other kind of salvation. We’re going to unpack that a little bit. Is the doctrine of hell unloving? We’ve just touched on that a little bit. Can you lose your salvation? We’ve also touched on that, and we have a number of other questions lined up.
Please email me any questions that you have. My email address is there; it’s really easy: markalm.org. We’ll do our best to fit those in.
The Point of Doctrine Is Worship
But I’ll just end with this, and this is true of all doctrine: the point of doctrine is worship, is it not? The point of theology is worship because it’s about God.
“The point of doctrine is worship because it’s about God.”
And I love this. I had a friend I was on a summer project with in college, and my boss would always say, “How you doing, Gina?” “The Lord be magnified.” He’d always say that. This is where it comes from.
Let me read this and pray. Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say continually, Yahweh be magnified.
Closing Prayer
Father, may we grow in our deep understanding of your salvation and love your salvation because we love you and we’ve been recipients of your love.
I pray with the Apostle Paul that we would know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we would be filled up to all the fullness of God. We pray that for us who know you. We pray that for the many we know who don’t know you, whom we want to be family with in Christ.
For some of us, even members of our own physical family are not in your family. We ask, Father, we plead with you for their salvation. Do what only you can do in their hearts.
Work in our hearts, Father, to have your heart for the hearts of others. Both to desire their salvation and to trust you in bringing it about in your way, in your time, and in your loving sovereignty.
Father, we love you. We rejoice in our salvation. You have rescued us from the pit. Father, you have forgiven our sins.
How blessed is the one whose sins are forgiven, whose iniquities the Lord does not take into account, all the eternal damnation that you’ve saved us from, Father. Just amazing. May we bask in these truths. Work in us as only you can. We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.