6. repentance
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Slides to accompany the podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/47879/354491-6-repentance-complete-mp3
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6. repentance
- 1. Welcome to Grace!Welcome to Grace! For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
- 2. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction
- 3. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction “The repentance that leads on to salvation is a Gospel grace by means of which a person is caused by faith in Christ to humble himself on account of sin.” And because we carry around a human nature biased towards evil, “repentance is to continue through the whole course of our lives.” (1689 Second London Baptist Confession)
- 4. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • God’s gift
- 5. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • God’s gift • Fundamental re-orientation - μετανοια
- 6. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • The Gospel’s call! • John the Baptist, Luke 3:7ff. “John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” • Jesus, Mark 1:14 ff. • Pentecost, Acts 2:38 • Paul’s farewell exhortation to Ephesian elders, Acts 20:21
- 7. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • The Gospel’s call! • John the Baptist, Luke 3:7ff. • Jesus, Mark 1:14 ff. “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” • Pentecost, Acts 2:38 • Paul’s farewell exhortation to Ephesian elders, Acts 20:21
- 8. Pentecost - Acts 2:37 ff. “ ‘Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.’ 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ 38 Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.’”
- 9. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • The Gospel’s call! • John the Baptist, Luke 3:7ff. • Jesus, Mark 1:14 ff. • Pentecost, Acts 2:38 • Paul’s farewell exhortation to Ephesian elders, Acts 20:21
- 10. Farewell to Ephesian elders - Acts 20 “ From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. 18 When they arrived, he said to them: ‘You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. 19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. 20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. 21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”
- 12. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • The Gospel’s call! • Personal
- 13. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • The Gospel’s call! • Personal, Luke 3:1-3, 11-14
- 14. Luke 3:11-14 ‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. 11 John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptised. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’ 13 ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them. 14 Then some soldiers asked him, ‘And what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.’
- 15. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Context
- 16. Acts 19:18-20 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
- 17. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19: 18-20 • Public (v. 18a) “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done.”
- 18. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19:18-20 • Public • Responsible (v. 18b)
- 19. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19:18-20 • Public • Responsible • Transparent (v. 18 - they came, they confessed publicly)
- 20. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19:18-20 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal (v. 19a)
- 21. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal • Sacrificial (v. 19b)
- 22. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal • Sacrificial (v. 19b) “A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.”
- 23. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal • Sacrificial • Powerful! (v. 20)
- 24. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal • Sacrificial • Powerful! • Conclusion
- 25. Repentance – Acts 19:18-20 • Introduction • What IS it? • It’s CHARACTER: Acts 19 • Public • Responsible • Transparent • Personal • Sacrificial • Powerful! • Conclusion “In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”
Editor's Notes
- Here’s some very good advice, wouldn’t you say?Listen to this: “when holding an object with a high internal energy, and that energy is radiating into holder's appendages, the holder is advised to drop the object, possibly scream, and definitely run away.” To paraphrase … there’s stuff you might get hold of that will hurt you and you should drop it like it’s hot. In looking at the subject of the Christian Experience of God we’ve come today to look at the matter of Repentance … and already there may be people around the room starting to switch off! It’s not an issue the preacher tackles if he wants to make himself very popular! But it is fundamental to the saved life, the Christian life and a TERRIBLY important part of the Christian experience of God. In the old days, they knew this! So the 1689 second London Baptist Confession says:
- μετανοέω1) to change one's mind, i.e. to repent 2) to change one's mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one's past sinsThere is something that needs to be said here, though, on account of the damage done to the idea by the RC theologians before the Reformation …No less a person than Tertullian protested the unsuitable translation of the Greek metanoeo into the Latin paenitentiam agite by arguing that "in Greek, metanoia is not a confession of sins but a change of mind.“ "Conversion" (from the Latin conversiōn-em turning round) with its "change in character" meaning is more nearly the equivalent of metanoia than repentance – if we take ‘repentance’ to mean ‘penitence’. Synonyms for "conversion" include "change of heart" and "metanoia’ … but we need to be careful here and need to stay with the question ‘change of mind from what to what?’! Two key Protestant Reformation figures took up Tertullian's protest. In opposition to the RC Church's interpretation of metanoia as comprising contrition, confession, and penances, Martin Luther objected that it retained its classical sense of "a change of mind." John Calvin pointed to the double derivation of "repentance": from the Hebrew meaning conversion, or turning again and the Greek [metanoia] meaning a change of mind and purpose. The meaning of the word, for Calvin, is appropriate to both derivations because repentance (a) involves "withdrawing from ourselves," (b) turning to God, (c) "laying aside the old," and (d) putting on "a new mind.“ Now, of course, Liberal theologians want to take the contrition for sin right out of the idea because they’ve been heavily influenced by the Freudian idea that guilt is damaguing and either IS or CAUSE mental illness.So, in his classic word study, Treadwell Walden sought to promote the proper meaning of metanoia as "change of Mind, a change in the trend and action of the whole inner nature, intellectual, affectional and moral." over against its translation as repentance. In the present day, other writers continue Walden's effort. Edward J. Anton refers back to Walden's effort and makes a similar effort in his Repentance: A Cosmic Shift of Mind and Heart. Anton observes that in most dictionaries and in the minds of most Christians the primary meaning of "repent" is to look back on past behavior with sorrow, self-reproach, or contrition, sometimes with an amendment of life. But neither Jesus nor John the Baptist says to look back in sorrow. That’s strictly true, as far as it goes. They preach to look forward with fear on account of the fact that Jesus is coming to judge them for their past! For St Paul, "metanoia is a transfiguration for your brain" that opens a new future. Yes, that also is important and true. Charles Taylor defines metanoia as "to change one's mind of attitude" and builds his pastoral counseling method on the "metanoia model." In doing so, Taylor recalls that the center of Jesus' ministry was a call to metanoia.Again,the question is ‘from what to what?’ and the answer is from living with what produces guilt because it is sin to living by faith in the living God Who loved me and gave Himself for me! So we do end up with: "a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion," augmented by an explanation of metanoia’s Greek source: "from metanoiein to change one's mind, repent, from meta- + noein to think, from nousmind." And we know this refers to a person’s fundamental orientation towards sin and self, repudiating that from the very heart to live my life dedicated to serving the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.Scripture doesn’t just give us a word to mess with defining, though. It goes on to show us its centrality and to paint us its portrait in the lives of the people who are changed by it.
- Not only is repentance the gift of God to an individual, to whom God has given new birth, repentance and faith, it is also of the essence of the call of the Gospel.Your salvation is the gift of God – and this is essential to your salvation, so Acts 11:18 refers to God GIVING repentance to the Gentiles as well as the Jews and 2 Timothy 2:25 says that the Lord’s servant mustn’t be quarrelsome.Quite the reverse.“25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”But the way this is handled at the front end of mission throughout Scripture is that repentance is directly called for as an act of the (secretly and invisibly regenerated) will. So the herald of the Saviour, who went before the Lord announcing that the Day of the Lord was close at hand put it in plainly OT prophetic terms like this … “‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” Clearly here: a practical rather than a theoretical repentance was being called for No attempt was made to hide the imminence of God’s judgement of human sin This had nothing to do with the slushy mush that tickles people’s ears in much contemporary popular preaching!This is not ‘Neutral therapeutic theism’! God is coming to judge You are guilty before Him Repent towards God and show your repentance by your deeds. Pretty simple to see where John was coming from.
- Jesus came soon after and, in terms of preaching repentance, clearly in Mark’s Gospel picked up this thing where John had left off. John’s imprisoned for this preaching Jesus proclaimed the Good News up in Galilee (not the desert, like John, but not the centre of established religion either!) Preached the imminence of God’s judgement Preached repentance and faith AS A PACKAGE This was not just some early days message … it was integral too at the birth of the church …
- On the day of Pentecost when the focus is on the giving of the Spirit of Prophecy (as in Joel 2) there is NO soft-pedalling of the need to acknowledge the imminence of God’s judgement, the accountability of humanity, and the pressing need (in view of our accountability for our sins before God) to turn from our former way of life in rebellion against the coming King – expressed in all manner of individual ways – to serve the One True Living God. Peter directly confronts the people of Jerusalem with an absolute accusation, linking it to what’s happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus mebbe 6 weeks before:“…let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.’” So … Peter, at the birth of the NT Church, directly holds people accountable for their own identified and highlighted acts of obvious rebellion against God. And they FEEL it and cry out. “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter IMMEDIATELY blesses them with the answer that LIBERATES them. “‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” And as these residents of Jerusalem hear the Gospel call, they turn from sin and are baptised and receive the Spirit AND GO FREE! Repentance faith and baptism open the door to the blessings of God!
- The fact that this call to repentance and faith is what characterises the message and the mission of the NT Church comes out plainly in Paul’s last message to the Ephesian elders …
- Paul is on his way up to Jerusalem, knowing only that imprisonment and mebbe death are awaiting him there. He is walking in the Way of the Master. Here’s his last message to this the most prominent church in the province of Asia … a place we know from the account in Acts of Paul’s ministry had been very much on his heart. Here’s how he reminds them of his apostolic example as he sets out the priorities for the continuation of the church. How does he commend his ministry back to them? You know my way of life You know my preaching methods … publicly and house to house (NO pulpit prima dona but happy to look into your eyes and tell you the truth) You know my preaching message … same for Jews and Greeks i.e. everyone … MustTurn to God in REPENTANCE, &Have faith in our Lord Jesus
- So, Apologetics: life Method: declare – publicly and house to house Message: Repent & believe. That’s apostolic ministry, for you. That’s the Way of Jesus and the Life of the Church. Repentance is of the ESSENCE of the Gospel’s call
- The second thing it is, is personal. It’s intensely personal in that it means different things for different people … what I mean is this…. Look at Luke 3:11-14
- So far so good with the ‘what is repentance?’ question. But what does it LOOK like? For a very clear example let’s spend the rest of our time today looking briefly at Acts 19:18-20
- Paul goes ahead of Apollos to Ephesus alone. He meets believers prepared by John and his baptism but know nothing of Pentecost and the Spirit given there. They believe, are baptised and receive the Spirit … speaking in tongues and prophesying which shows that something’s definitely gone on here! The blessings of the New Covenant have come into the experience of the first Asian believers at Ephesus. Paul hits the synagogue, then, and (v. 8) “spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. 9 But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.” This was a very superstitious, pagan society and bits of cloth Paul had touched got taken to sick people and they were healed … this was real ‘Power Encounter’ evangelism stuff in a society given over to powerful occult stuff and Paul sets us a crystal-clear example not to back down but to put the power of God in the Gospel right out there! Now he didn’t initiate this prayer handkerchief stuff and he certainly didn’t get side tracked by it! But illnesses were cured and evil spirits driven out, demonstrating the victory of Christ on the Cross. We don’t rejoice that the demons are subject to us, but we rejoice in the power of God in the Gospel put forth through those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life! And that’s the point of this account of the Seven Sons of Sceva that follows … And then we’re into a situation where the sheer authority of the God of this Gospel is seen … so that (v. 17) “When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honour.” Specifically, what the devil had to offer was shown up to be a busted flush. And the occult practitioners of Ephesus did something outstanding in response …
- There’s repentance for you … a perfect and crystal clear picture. They left their way of life in view of the judgement of God on the devil and all his followers and works, and they embraced a different view of the world, lifestyle and vision. Look what characterises their decisive repentance …
- These guys were part of the huge Ephesian occult industry where having a big name for being someone powerful was their stock in trade. But they have come – perhaps through the experience of the Seven Sons of Sceva – to realise that the powerful name is Jesus. Publicly they come and confess what they’ve done. What HAD they done? When people do a deal with darkness their deeds become dark indeed. It’s good by me that we don’t hear their detail … But the open confession of where their rebellion against the Almighty’d got them to is the issue. It’s public. And there’s no excuses.
- Confessing – the verb is ἐξομολογέω1) to confess 2) to profess 2a) acknowledge openly and joyfully 2b) to one's honour: to celebrate, give praise to 2c) to profess that one will do something, to promise, agree, engage Responsible where responsibility has been lacking previously, with the acknowledgement that all is not well. You know that social question: ‘how’re things?’ or the one that goes: ‘how ARE you?!’ And you also know that the only socially acceptable answer all too often seems to be … ‘I am FINE!’ But you’re not. I’m not. We are FAR from fine. This is acknowledgement that things with us are NOT what they should be and that we have done spectacularly butSECRETLYWRONG. And now this is the END of that … all that pretending. v. 18 “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done.” It’s like claiming your own baggage at the carousel and then walking across the large open space in full public view to tell the bloke in the uniform there’s stuff in YOUR bag that there shouldn’t be. Un-natural, isn’t it? Who would DO that? Someone who’s been converted would do that. It’s characteristic Christian experience.
- There’s nothing held back in the hope of keeping SOME shred of Ephesian respectability. Respectability is redefined in the faith of Christ. It comes to consist in something else, because everything we previously valued is reshaped by the values of what the Gospel calls valuable. Faithfulness becomes valued. Humility becomes valued. Grace and graciousness become valuable together. Alike-ness to Christ becomes valued. Vaunting HIS power and not mine are salvation’s joint effect. They aren’t ashamed to realign with Christ … they came, they confessed PUBLICLY
- We saw earlier that John called different people to different expressions of repentance according to their situations … crowd, tax collectors, soldiers … well, this repentance of these former occult practitioners is pretty personal too. Ephesus was known for these guys with their spells and incantations and what not. Archaeologists have discovered their books with these ‘Ephesian Letters’ as they were called in them … jumbled gibberish words that were felt to be powerful forms of words. There was good trade in this sort of stuff at Ephesus, but given the cosmic supremacy of the Gospel in view of what Jesus Christ did on the Cross:It is essential Gospel content that (Colossians 2:15) “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Now these newly convinced and converted followers of the Prince of Darkness acknowledge the error of their former days and turn decisively, once for all, to the lifestyle of followers of the Almighty Christ … They take their precious copies of these Ephesian letters and they deal with them. v. 19 a “A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly.”
- Occult paraphernalia seems to command a high price … They could make a lot of money trading as magicians with these books of theirs. And if they’d just decided on a career change they could no doubt have got good money for their kit on Ephesian E-bay! But no – they were REPENTING!
- Repentance is so much more than a change of course. It is the putting to death of the old self … as Romans 6 points out with reference to baptism. Fifty thousands drachmas is a lot of money to send up in smoke and put beyond use … One drachma could buy one sheep. So this many drachmas could purchase a huge flock of sheep. A drachma also equals a denarius, or a day’s wage for the average worker. So this amount would be equal to 50,000 work days or in excess of 8,300 weeks of labor (the weeks are calculated at six working days because of the Jewish cultural context). The impact of Christianity on the Ephesian economy was considerable … see Acts 19:26 ff.“And you see and hear that this Paul has persuaded and turned away a large crowd, not only in Ephesus but in practically all of the province of Asia, by saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that this business of ours will come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be regarded as nothing, and she whom all the province of Asia and the world worship will suffer the loss of her greatness.” Public, responsible, transparent, personal, sacrificial, and finally …
- Really, here’s the point, the powerful and poignant conclusion …
- To hear some people carry on – usually in big, respectable churches it has to be said – you’d think Jesus came to call the righteous to health, wealth and prosperity. But He didn’t. He came to call sinners to repentance. Sure, we want to see a bigger church, and so then this stuff Acts portrays for us here is the essence of what it HAS got to look like! Why? Here’s why, v. 20 …
- When the church doesn’t bottle preaching and CALLING FOR repentance in view of our imminent accountability before God, look what happens. Real repentance breaks out … repentance that is: Public Responsible Transparent Personal Sacrificial, & Powerful! The Word of the Lord spreads widely. You’d think the opposite. No. This. Spread. Widespread. Growing power. When our society speaks of ‘coming out’ it doesn’t usually mean anything like this. But frankly, it’s time for this church we’ve got in this land to come out with what the Christian Experience is about. John, Jesus, Peter at Pentecost nor Paul in multi-faith, multi-cultural Ephesus tried to sell repentance as self-improvement – like it’s going to give you a lovely, free, satisfied life. They taught it like WE are the rebels and GOD is the Judge … and accountability is coming our way. And when they did, and the power of God anointed the preaching (boy we need to pray for THAT!) … THEN the Word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. What are we looking for?