Sermon Transcript:

In the 2006 Pixar movie Cars, Lightning McQueen, a rookie race car, is obsessed with speed. But when he’s forced to race on dirt, he keeps losing control on the turns. His mentor, Doc Hudson, gives him unexpected advice: "To go left, you have to turn right." At first, McQueen scoffs, but soon he realizes—it works.

At times, God’s truth seems counterintuitive to us, too. The Bible never contradicts itself, but it often challenges our assumptions. An example of this is the proclamation of the gospel itself. The gospel call goes out for people to repent and believe. Some understandably ask, “Do I have to repent, or do I simply believe?” The answer is yes. There is no contradiction, repentance and faith are just two sides of the same coin. Just as thunder and lightning are distinct effects of the same event, so too are faith and repentance inseparable results of the same spiritual reality. The main point of the message today is

Repentance is a Gospel Doctrine.

Let us pray that the Lord will strengthen us in the truth this morning that we would come to a deeper understanding of the power of the Gospel and of the amazing depths of His love so that our hearts are raised to continuous praise of the glory of His grace.

We left off last week with angels ministering to Jesus in the wilderness after His encounter with the devil. When we pick up in verse 12, Matthew has fast-forwarded several months. As we go through this series, keep in mind that Matthew isn’t giving us a step-by-step report. He jumps around a bit and the events are often not presented in the order they happened. He organizes his material around themes and teaching segments rather than a timeline. So, we pick up just as Jesus is beginning His ministry in Galilee.

12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” 

The ministry of Jesus and John overlapped for a short time but when John is arrested, Jesus goes to Galilee, and this is where His ministry explodes into public view. Matthew quotes from Isaiah 9:1-2 showing that Jesus is fulfilling the Messianic promises. The light has dawned and Isaiah says it will shine in Galilee of the Gentiles—this northernmost region, full of outsiders, full of people on the fringes, full of those whom the Jewish world might overlook.

Galilee, near what is now Lebanon and Syria, was a place where Jews and Gentiles lived side by side, where influences mixed, where purity laws were harder to maintain but this is where the kingdom dawns. The darkness will not stand, and the gloom will not last. The promised King has come. And in Him, God is bringing blessing and salvation—not just to Israel, but to the world.

Verse 16 marks the end of the introduction to the gospel of Matthew. The qualifications and identity of Jesus as the promised Messiah have been settled, and beginning in verse 17, Matthew shifts his focus to the teaching and work of Jesus. He says,

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  

The final prophet of the Old Covenant, John the Baptist, preached that sinners must repent because the kingdom was at hand. Now, Jesus comes to initiate a New Covenant, a covenant that will surpass the old one, and He begins this work by preaching exactly what John preached. Sinners must repent because the Kingdom is at hand.

Since Jesus is perfect, we therefore see that it is a mistake to contrast repentance with grace. Jesus, who comes to free us from the law and promises salvation to all who trust in what He has done for them, nevertheless insists that we turn from our sins. The first word of His first recorded sermon is “repent” and this is not an exception. This will remain a consistent theme in His preaching throughout His ministry.

In Matthew 11 and Luke 13 Jesus warns of judgment for those who refuse to repent. In Luke 15 He teaches that heaven rejoices over sinners who repent. He illustrates true repentance in several parables. In Revelation 2 and 3 He calls both believers and unbelievers to repentance. He begins with repentance, consistently emphasizes it and then Luke 24:47 records that one of the last things Jesus said before ascending to heaven was

47 … that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

This teaching of Christ continues through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the apostles as well. When Peter’s preaching pierced the consciences of those who heard him at Pentecost, they asked

38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ ... [1]

When Paul, the apostle of grace, preaches to the Greeks in Athens, he tells them…

30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent[2]

We find the same thing in the teaching of all the apostles. If we are to be biblical, we cannot separate faith from repentance. Faith and repentance are like inhaling and exhaling, they are distinct but cannot be separated because they come together in the same life-giving motion.

In verse 34 the Bible describes those who responded to Paul’s call to repentance as men who believed. To call sinners to repent is to call them to believe, and to call them to faith is to call them to repentance. Mark makes the connection more explicit than Matthew. Mark 1:14–15 says,

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Pursuing repentance isn’t legalism. It’s not an effort to earn righteousness, it’s the admission that we have none. True repentance is not a work, it is faith working, because it means surrendering the illusion of self-rule. It’s not trying harder; it’s giving up. It’s confessing that we are not in control, that we don’t know what’s best, that our best works fall short. Repentance is having our will crucified with Christ so that by His strength we may pursue His will—not to earn His favor, but because we have already been rescued by His grace.

Faith is always empty-handed, but that’s the issue. By nature, our hands are full. They are full of sin and full of self, full of our so-called “goodness” and “wisdom.” But hands that are filled with these things cannot cling to Christ. If your hands are full of what you think you can give God, there is no place in them for you to receive His grace. Repentance is not an extra work added to faith. Repentance is the act of letting go. It is opening our hands so that our life falls from our grasp so that we can grab onto to something better, the life purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ.

There are at least two ways we can see clearly that repentance is not a “work.” First, repentance is not a principle of the law and second, repentance is a gift and therefore cannot be earned.

There is no principle of repentance under the law. The law doesn’t say, “Try your best.” It says, “the soul that sins shall die.” The standard isn’t effort, it’s perfection and the moment we break it, we stand condemned. A righteous person keeps every command, every time, without fail. But the law is relentless—it doesn’t make room for second chances, it simply declares every sinner guilty. It offers no comfort, only condemnation.

Does the law demand repentance? Yes, but repenting under the law doesn’t earn us anything. It’s like a kid who tells his dad, “You should take me to Cedar Point because I cleaned my room.” Well, congratulations, that’s what you were supposed to do. You don’t earn a reward for doing what was required in the first place. The law shows us our failure, it doesn’t save us from it.

Someone may point out that a great deal of what is written in the law books is about repentance, especially all the details about purification and sacrifices. That is true, but this is grace and not law. God gives Israel provision for repentance not because it flows from any principle in the law itself, but because He is a gracious God. The law requires the lawbreaker to die but God allows a substitute to die in the place of the sinner.

This is not law, it is grace. Those sacrifices, which demonstrate the repentance of the people, are brought in faith. Faith that God will keep His promise to provide salvation to all those who trust in Him. It was never the act of bringing sacrifices that counted for anything. The blood of bulls and goats could not erase sin or satisfy the justice of God. It was faith, expressing itself in repentance that God was pleased to bless with forgiveness.

Furthermore, there were no sacrifices that could be brought for what the law calls high handed, or willfully defiant sins. That is why after David sins with Basheba, he says in Psalm 51 that God will not delight in sacrifice, or he would give it. Repentance is not of the law, it is a gospel doctrine, which is why the apostle Paul, speaking of Jesus, says in Acts 13:38–39,

38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

To repent is not a work, it is a change of mind and heart, a turning from sin, that the law cannot produce. Repentance is a doctrine of grace. That brings us to the second reason repentance cannot be a work. Repentance is a gift of grace and gifts cannot be earned, only received. Only God can remove the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. True repentance flows from a sovereign act of grace, the same grace that turns us from our unbelief gives us a new desire to love God and our neighbors.

So, although we repent, it is God who gets the glory, because the desire and ability to do so are a gift of God’s grace. Listen to what Peter says about Jesus in Acts 5:31,

31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Listen to how the apostles and believers in Jerusalem react when Peter tells them in Acts 11:18 that some gentiles have also received the Holy Spirit.

18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

We can see this also in how the apostle Paul explains ministry to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24–26 where he says,

24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Just as we must do the believing, we must do the repenting, and yet both are possible because God has graciously and sovereignly opened our blind eyes and caused us to be born again to a living hope. This was the ancient promise of a better covenant. God would create for Himself a people who would honor Him and serve Him from the heart. Jeremiah 31:33 says,

33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This renewal of faith and obedience is God’s work. Over and over God says “I will” do it     

They shall only happens because God says “I will.” We see the same thing in Ezekiel 36:26–28 where God repeats this promise to Israel while they are in exile saying,

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 … and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

True repentance is a gift from God. It’s the Holy Spirit’s work. It isn’t accomplished through human effort. Left to himself, a sinner clings to sin, blind to his rebellion. If he turns, it’s because God has turned him. By nature, his heart loves darkness; if it now suddenly hates sin, it’s because God has done what was impossible for him to do. God has changed his heart. This is the promise of the New Covenant, it is not a human work, it is a gospel blessing.

At the Last Supper Jesus refers to the cup, which represents the blood He will shed on the cross, as the “New Covenant in my blood.” Jesus shed His blood to obtain these promises for you. He did not die only for our forgiveness, but for us to be freed from sin entirely. He shed His precious blood not only to deliver us from the punishment for sins, but also to deliver us from the power of sin over us.

We have been freed from the power of the devil; he is no longer our master. We can resist him, knowing that Jesus has delivered us from his power. Knowing that we have been adopted by God because of Jesus, that our acceptance does not depend upon our performance, frees us to obey with joy and to experience the peace of knowing our holiness has been purchased by something far more valuable than anything we could offer.

Nobody is ever too sinful to repent and be saved, because nothing is more precious to God than His beloved Son. We may stumble and fall, but we press on, upheld by the assurance that Jesus Christ has offered Himself as our guarantee. God will complete the good work He began in us. Listen to how the apostle Peter explains it in 1 Peter 1:14–16, 18-19,

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” …  18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ ...

In an amazing act of love, God sent His Son to die for us. He gave His life, shedding His blood on a cross to purchase the salvation of all who would believe in Him and trust Him as their Lord and Savior. He bore the full weight of sin, satisfying the wrath of God, eliminating any claim whatsoever the devil has on us. Three days later, He rose again and now He is seated at the right hand of the Father, calling all to repent and believe the gospel.

Our only hope is to repent and believe the gospel. We must turn from trusting ourselves. Turn from our sin and let go of every attempt to justify ourselves before God and receive the gift of justification God offers us in Jesus Christ by faith. The evidence the Bible gives us that we have this faith is repentance. Saving faith is not passive, it not only praises Him, it bows the knee to Him.

To speak of salvation apart from faith and repentance is like trying to speak of fire without heat or light. Wherever there is fire, both light and heat are present. Wherever the Holy Spirit of God is working there is both faith and repentance. They are conjoined twins, born of the same mother and forever connected to one another. What then does true biblical repentance look like?

I believe there are five aspects that the Bible teaches accompany true Spirit-wrought repentance. These are the five things that need to be present for biblical repentance. First, we must Recognize our sin.

Jesus came to save sinners, so unless we are convinced of our sin, we will never embrace the cross as good news. If we don’t think we have a disease, we will see no use for the cure. A person does not consent to chemotherapy without believing they have cancer. The first step in repenting is admitting we are sinners. 1 John 1:10 says,

10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

The second aspect of true repentance is that we have Remorse over our sin. Some people speak as though the cross is a “get out of jail free” card. That to be saved means we need not have any sensitivity to our sins any longer. Their logic is that since Jesus died to save us for our sins and we believe in His finished work, there is nothing to be sorry about. It’s all good, don’t sweat it.

I have been told by people they never feel broken over their sin because they have a deep understanding of grace. If the logic of your theology is so sophisticated that it contradicts Jesus and the apostles, that is not a mark of spiritual maturity. It is a mark of an unconverted heart.

It is true that Jesus has paid for our sins and freed us from guilt and condemnation. We should not be weighed down by sins that Jesus paid for. We can walk in peace and joy knowing our sins have been removed. This does not mean, however, that we are not remorseful when we sin. It is not as if we only repent the day we believe and then we are done. The Bible presents repentance as an ongoing characteristic of the Christian life.

As believers, we do not wallow in our sins, but we are sorry for them. It is because we are sorry for them that the grace of God is so sweet.  2 Corinthians 7:10 says

10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

If we Grieve and regret our sins now, we will avoid having to regret them in hell, because godly grief will drive us to Jesus Christ who cleanses us and saves us.

The third aspect of Spirit-wrought repentance is that we Reveal our sin by confessing it.  

Confession of sin is a mark of humiliation and confidence. As believers, we are not afraid that others know of our weakness because by doing that we admit we need God’s help, we encourage others who are struggling, and we express our confidence in Jesus to keep His promise to save us.

Jesus taught us to confess our sins in the Lord’s prayer. Paul tells us in Romans that with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 1 John 1:8–9 says,

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It is important that we have brothers or sisters that we can confess our sins to. One of the benefits of practicing meaningful membership as the New Testament describes is there is clarity as to who is committed to love you and minister to you, so you are safe to be honest. There should be brothers and sisters here that you fellowship with that you can be open with. By confessing our sins, and by comforting, rebuking, and exhorting according to the word, we proclaim our dependence on Christ.

The next aspect is we Renounce the sin. We hate it and strive against it. Colossians 3:5 says,

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

If someone brutally murdered your mother, I doubt you would invite them into your home to hang out or socialize with them. But this is how so many of us treat sin. Do we not realize that it was sin that murdered our Lord? How can we claim to love Him and have a causal relationship with sin? If there is one thing the Cross makes clear it is how serious God is about sin. I fear we do not take it nearly seriously enough.

The Puritan John Owen rightly said, “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” We often toy with our sin thinking we can contain it, not realizing it is plotting every moment to destroy us. I heard about an old preacher who poured out his heart one Sunday preaching on the danger of sin. After he finished, a man came up to him and said, “we all sin, and I confess, there are a few cobwebs in my heart, what do you suggest I do.” The pastor thought for a moment and said, “kill the spider.”

That brings us to the next aspect of true repentance, it involves Running to Christ for deliverance. We cannot kill the spider in our own strength. Jesus has destroyed the power of sin for us. Victory over sin is not won by striving under our own strength to conquer it. The law cannot kill sin. Remember, repentance is a gospel doctrine. It is Jesus Christ who destroys sin, cleanses us, and gives us the strength to persevere.

We must run away from sin and run to Jesus. Romans 8:13–15 says,

13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Here is a warning and a promise. If we live by the flesh, we will die. We must repent, but if by the Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body, we will live. That means we must strive against sin, but our striving does not come from the flesh, but the Spirit. What sustains us in our faith and repentance are the promises of God. Jesus resisted the devil because He knew who He was. The same is true for us.

We have been adopted by God. He is our father. We are led by the Spirit, meaning we find our satisfaction and our joy in our relationship with God. We do not need to fear, we are no longer slaves to sin. Our confidence is in Christ. Our joy is in Christ. Our satisfaction is in Christ. Our identity is in Christ, and our victory is in Christ. This means we live for Christ.

To run to new life in Jesus means we run away from our old life in the world. In John 14:15 Jesus says,

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

 It is not that we love Him, so we do things we don’t want to do. Loving Him is the essence of what is commanded. If we love Him, we keep His commandments because our desires are transformed so that we love what He loves. We do not obey because we are keeping rules, but because we are filled with a love greater than the world itself.

In summary, biblical repentance is not just a one-time act but a lifelong response of faith enabled by God’s grace and includes:

•       Recognize sin: We cannot repent unless we see our need.
•       Remorse over sin: Not to earn forgiveness, but because we love Christ.
•       Reveal (Confess) sin: Trusting in God’s promise.
•       Renounce sin: Hating it and striving against it by the Spirit’s power.
•       Run to Christ: Resting in His finished work, not our efforts.

True repentance is not about self-improvement but surrender to Jesus. It is turning from sin and turning to Christ in faith. It is not opposed to grace; it is the very fruit of grace at work in our hearts. The King has come, the light has dawned, the time is now to repent and believe. I would like to end with the words of the apostle Paul in Titus 2:11–14 as he reflects on the grace of repentance.

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.