Ongoing Repentance

Leslie Basham: How do you know that you’ve truly repented from your sin? There will be life in you. Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Good works will flow out of the repentant heart. If there is no fruit, there is no root. There’s no evidence. There’s no life. There’s no growth. There’s just death if there hasn’t been repentance.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Tuesday, October 2.

We’ve been on an exciting adventure called Seeking Him. It’s a twelve week series on the joy of personal revival. This week we’ve been learning about something we need to demonstrate before revival comes: repentance. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I read a story about a notorious gangster named Mickey Cohen who attended a meeting in southern California where a famous evangelist was preaching. After the meeting this gangster expressed interest in the message. So several people talked with him and really tried to encourage him about making a decision for Christ.

He didn’t make a commitment to Christ at that point, but some time later another friend urged him to invite Christ into his life. At that point he professed to do so. But his life from that point on gave no evidence of repentance or any change.

He said to the friend later, “You didn’t tell me I’d have to give up my work” (meaning his rackets). “You didn’t tell me I’d have to give up my friends” (speaking of his fellow gangsters).

He had heard that “so and so” was a football player and someone else was a Christian actress and somebody else was a Christian Senator. So he thought he could just be a Christian gangster.

We laugh, except it’s really not funny. George Gallup, the pollster, has observed that most Americans who profess to be Christians do not act significantly different from non-Christians in their daily lives. And studies after studies after studies, surveys, and polls bear this out.

Did you get that—most people who profess to be Christians do not live in a way that is measurably different from those who don’t claim to be Christians? We’re talking about the divorce rate, views of morality, sexual experience. In category after category, the statistics are virtually the same between those who profess to be Christians and those who make no such claim.

The majority of church members in America give no visible evidence of having been born again. Something is wrong with that picture.

Think about how many church members you know—maybe it’s your own experience—who go on in their Christian life for years and years in bondage to the same sins, can’t get victory. Some of them with no desire to change, no effort to change, no heart, no appetite for spiritual matters.

I feel sorry for the average pastor, knowing how many people he’s preaching to week after week after week who give no evidence of any spiritual life. What’s the problem?

I believe the major problem is that many people sitting in our churches week after week after week have never truly been born again. They’re alive physically, but they’re not alive spiritually. They’re religious, but they’re not righteous. They profess something with their lips that they do not possess in their lives.

And I’ve come to believe that perhaps a huge majority of people who are members of our evangelical churches have never been converted. They’re not members of the Church, the body of Jesus Christ.

I have no way of knowing who those people are. You have no way of knowing that. But God knows. He searches the hearts and He knows that millions and millions of those people who will be in church this Sunday, in your church and mine and in our churches across this country have made a “decision.”

They’ve prayed a prayer. They joined a church. They’ve been baptized. They serve in positions of responsibility and leadership in the church. They teach a Sunday School class. They sing on the praise and worship team. They’re doing a lot of things, but many of these people have never been converted.

They’re not children of God. They may be church members, but they don’t belong to Christ. I think one of the big reasons for this is that for a hundred years or more now, many of our modern day evangelistic efforts have often appealed to people to join, to sign up, to walk an aisle, to do this or do that, to join the church. But they have not appealed to people to repent.

A faulty message preaching a gospel apart from repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ is going to produce faulty results. We can pack our churches. We’ve proved that we can do that. But when you begin to preach and proclaim and share the gospel, it’s a whole different story.

People aren’t going to line up as fast to hear that, because it requires a change of citizenship, a change of loyalty, a change of allegiance, a new king. And people don’t want a new king. They want to be their own king. They don’t want to repent. God has to give the gift of repentance. And apart from that repentance there is no conversion.

Mark chapter 1, verse 14 and verse 15: “After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God.” What’s the gospel? He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Repent and believe in the gospel.

That’s not two separate exhortations; two separate things we’re supposed to do. It’s really one. It’s like “leave Chicago and go to Denver.” You can’t go to Denver without leaving Chicago if you’re starting in Chicago. So it’s “repent and believe in the gospel.” You can’t believe if you haven’t repented. And if you’ve repented you will believe. And if you do believe you have repented.

So we have millions of people sitting in our evangelical churches who have “accepted Christ” perhaps for what they thought He could do for them, something they thought they would gain, something they wanted to add. Like some other world religions, they’re just adding one god to their many other gods. That’s not god with a capital “g.” That’s god with a lowercase “g." That’s idolatry.

Religion for millions of evangelical Christians has become just another idol in their collection. They’ve accepted Christ, but they’ve never repented and believed the gospel. They follow Christ like the people did in John chapter 6 for what they can get out of Him.

As long as Jesus was doing miracles, oh my goodness, the multitudes were there. As long as Jesus was providing food and meat, the multitudes were there. As long as Jesus was doing the spectacular, the extraordinary, the sensational, the crowds thronged.

But in John chapter 6 when Jesus began to proclaim the message that He is the Master, what happens? In the end of John chapter 6 it says, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (verse 66). The church emptied out.

You know what I believe? If we’re going to experience revival in our day, the church may need to empty out before it gets filled with the real thing. Now I’m not suggesting we try to empty our churches. I’m just saying the truth may empty our churches. Or people will have to repent and believe the gospel.

I believe in the coming awakening and revival for which we are praying and longing that one of the first results, one of the most obvious results is that millions of our evangelical church members will be converted. So many today have never yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They’re still running their own lives. But they consider themselves safe and headed for heaven even though there’s no fruit or evidence of repentance in their lives.

This is the message Peter preached at Pentecost. “Repent and be baptized,” (Acts 2:38). Baptism didn’t save. The baptism was the outward fruit, the outward evidence of an inward change of heart, the inward heart of repentance. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Peter’s second great sermon after the lame beggar was healed is in Acts chapter 3. Peter said, “Repent therefore and turn again” (Acts 3:19). Some of your translations say, “Be converted.” “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19, NKJV).

There is no forgiveness of sins as long as you are still living under your own lordship, as long as you have not turned from the idol of self to the worship of the true and living God. That is repentance.

When the apostle Paul stood before King Agrippa and gave his testimony of how Christ had appeared to him and told him that He was sending him to be a witness, Paul said, “I was not disobedient to what the Lord Jesus told me. And I began to preach first close at home and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:19-20, paraphrase).

That’s not a gospel of good works. That’s not saying if you do all these deeds that that makes you a Christian. It’s saying if you are a Christian, if you have repented, if you have turned in faith to Christ, the evidence will be seen in the fact that you will perform deeds in keeping with repentance. The good works will flow out of the repentant heart.

If there’s no fruit, there’s no root. There’s no evidence. There’s no life. There’s no growth. There’s just death if there hasn’t been repentance.

The Scripture talks about repentance from dead works and repentance from sin. What are those dead works? A dead work is any religious act that I do that’s for the purpose of gaining favor or merit with God by my own human effort. That’s a dead work.

Dead works can be worship, praying, singing, tithing, good works, accepting Jesus, fasting. And I want to say again that for millions of church members in this country, “praying a prayer accepting Jesus” has been nothing more than another good work, another way they attempted to gain the favor of a holy God on their own.

It’s works. It’s dead. The writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 6:1, “We must repent of dead works” (paraphrase). We have to repent of our religion that we thought was going to save us—not just repenting of our sins. Of course that gangster needed to repent of his sins, but good church members need to repent of their dead works.

You and I need to be repenters, to be repenting, to have not just a one-time past experience of repentance for salvation, but to be living as repenters day in and day out.

Let me ask you to turn in your Bible if you have it there to 2 Corinthians 7. At one point in Paul’s ministry he was forced to send a tough letter, a tough love letter, a disciplinary letter to the church in Corinth. We don’t know what the exact issue was, but there was some specific issue, apparently in a letter that was not 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians, another letter that we don’t have as part of our biblical Canon.

There was an issue in the church that needed to be corrected. In the book of 2 Corinthians where we’ve just turned, Paul commends the believers for the way that they had responded to his earlier rebuke.

How had they responded? With godly sorrow and with repentance. He had said to them, “This is out of order. This needs to be dealt with.” It was apparently some serious matter. Sin always is. And they had responded with godly sorrow and repentance.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 4, “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears.” By the way, that’s a good reminder that when you have to share correction with another believer, whether it’s your child or a friend that you’re confronting, to see the way that Paul confronted believers when they were wrong—in love. He said, “I wrote to you out of affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”

If you really love somebody, you’ll speak the truth. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” (Proverbs 27:6). Paul said, “I love you so much that I couldn’t let this go. I had to share. But I did it with a heavy heart. I did it with a grieving heart. This caused me tears and anguish and affliction. I didn’t write this easily.”

As I read this passage, I’m thinking about the parent saying to the child he’s getting ready to discipline, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” That’s really what Paul was saying. “This hurts me to have to hurt you. But because I love Christ and because I love you and because I want you to love Christ, I have to do this.”

Then Paul sent his colleague Titus to Corinth to see how things were going. And Titus returned from Corinth with news that was music to Paul’s ears. “The Corinthians received your letter. Yes, it hurt them at first. It caused them pain and sorrow. But they responded with a godly sorrow. They received the message. They received the truth and they have repented.”

Paul was overjoyed. And that’s the context of 2 Corinthians chapter 7 where we just turned. Second Corinthians 7:7, “He (Titus) told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me.” He told us how you responded.

Verse 8, “For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.”

What’s Paul saying? When I sent that letter, I had second thoughts. Did I do the right thing? Did I do it the right way? Was I going to hurt you and damage you in any way? He didn’t want to damage these precious children in the faith. He didn’t want to wound their faith. He wasn’t there to help them respond. You know a letter is never as good as face to face.

But he said, “I had to send the letter. And I made you grieve with my letter.” They were tough words from their spiritual father in the faith. And whatever it was was apparently pretty strong language because they didn’t take it lightly. It made them grieve. But he says, “I don’t regret it even though I know that that letter grieved you.”

Now before we go on, let me just point out here that his letter did grieve them. It wasn’t pain-free counsel. It hurt them. It wounded them. It brought them sorrow. It brought them pain for a while.

When you give godly correction to your children or to another believer in the Body of Christ, it may cause hurt. Make sure you’re doing it out of humility. Make sure you’re doing it with a right heart attitude. Make sure you are showing grief in your own heart, that you’re not mad at them, that you’re correcting in love and with tenderness of heart as Paul did these Corinthians.

The fact that it grieves the person who receives the correction doesn’t necessarily mean that you did it incorrectly. Discipline properly administered should cause pain because pain brings repentance and change.

You read about this in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11. “No discipline for the moment is enjoyable. It’s painful” (paraphrase). If it’s not painful, it’s not effective discipline. But what does the writer of the Hebrews say?

“Later it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Yes, it hurts. And you mothers know this from disciplining your children.

If you don’t discipline your child, you don’t love your child. If you don’t correct your child, if you don’t apply the rod for rebellion and disobedience with young children, you don’t love your child. If you don’t love another believer enough to speak the truth, you’re not really showing true love.

But when you speak the truth, when you administer biblical discipline, church discipline, the same thing would apply. It hurts. It grieves. That’s part of what makes it effective.

We can’t get free from sin until we have grieved over our sin. It’s a good thing to grieve our sin. That’s why some parents I know, when they spank their children they say, “As long as you’re screaming and kicking and yelling, I know you’re not broken. I know you’re not repenting. What I want to hear is soft crying, evidence of a soft, tender, responsive heart, grief.” Pain, yes. Kicking and flailing, no.

You moms know that difference. And Paul said, “I saw in the Corinthians, yes, it grieved them. Yes, it hurt them. I hurt you in my letter.” They mourned and they grieved over their sin. That’s a good thing.

When is the last time you mourned or grieved over your sin? How often do you find yourself mourning or grieving over your sin? Not just the fact that you got caught, but the root of your sin, the cause of it. The rebellion against God. Not that it made your life miserable or it wrecked a relationship, but the selfishness, the pride, the rebellion that caused you to talk to that person that way, to lie or to manipulate or to be reactionary to your husband’s leadership.

When is the last time you mourned and grieved over what your sin did to God? I have to tell you that it’s far too infrequent for me. Now, I get convicted. But one of the things I want God to do in my heart is to give me the ability, the grace to mourn and to grieve over my sin.

I’m not just talking about tears. Tears may be a part of that. If you never weep over your sin, you may want to ask God for the gift of tears. But you can shed buckets full of tears and never have a moment of true repentance.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Part of repentance is learning to mourn and to grieve over our sin.

I remember being in a Life Action Ministries revival crusade where I was ministering to the women. For the first week of that two-week span of meetings, as I met with the women morning after morning, there was such a sense of heaviness, grieving, mourning that was on those women about their sin as they were sharing what God was convicting them of, what God was doing in their hearts.

I can still remember this even though it was probably 15 years ago. My tendency as a young Christian worker at the time was to want to rescue them from that. I wanted to quickly apply God’s grace and say, “You don’t have to grieve. You don’t have to mourn. It’s okay.” I wanted to be merciful.

There is a time for mercy. There is a time for grace. We’re going to talk about that in this Seeking Him series. But I remember God impressed my heart in that particular setting, “Don’t release or relieve the pressure as long as God’s Spirit is putting it on. Don’t keep them from the cross. Don’t keep them from mourning and grieving appropriately over their sin. That’s an important part of the process.”

And so I stood back and watched God bring this heaviness, this conviction, this mourning, this grieving over sin.

I want to tell you, when the release came during that second week it was so sweet, so full, so rich, so precious. I came to see—I think that was my first time of really understanding that many times the release we experience in the forgiveness and grace of God is in proportion to the extent to which we’ve been willing to grieve and to mourn over our sin.

So don’t long to be rescued from the cross and don’t rescue somebody else from the cross before God is done bringing the conviction. Paul said, “My letter caused you to grieve.” Let me say this: Sin brings brief pleasures and lasting sorrow. That’s what sin does. Pleasure for a season, but lasting sorrow.

But repentance brings brief pain, brief sorrow, and lasting joy. Which would you rather have? The pleasures of sin for a season but knowing that you’ll spend an eternity grieving? Or to grieve and mourn now for a season over your sin but to know that it will bring lasting joy?

We’re going to pick up with this passage tomorrow and see the other evidences of repentance. But I just want to leave us there for this moment mourning and grieving over our sin.

Do you mourn and grieve over your sin?

Oh, Lord, would You give us a heart that sees sin as You see it? And may we be willing to endure the grief, the sorrow, the pain of Your conviction, the conviction of Your Holy Spirit to see our sin as it really is, as a capital offense against You, to grieve it, to mourn over it in a biblical and godly way. May You give to us godly sorrow that will produce true repentance and lasting change. For Jesus’ sake I pray it, amen.

Leslie: Nancy Leigh DeMoss has been giving us perspective. Sin is serious and repentance brings great joy.

Today’s program is part of a series called Seeking Him. It’s an unusual series in that it’s twelve weeks long. It’s an important series in that it will help you learn about the elements of personal revival.

You can order a CD of this week’s programs on repentance or on any of the topics we cover, but it’s a better value to order the entire twelve week series. It would be a great resource on understanding revival that you’ll be able to listen to for years.

For more information call us at 1-800-569-5959 or go online to ReviveOurHearts.com. When you contact us be sure to get a copy of the 2008 Revive Our Hearts wall calendar called “Prayers from the Heart.” Nancy wrote twelve prayers for this calendar, which you can read each month along with Scripture quotes and beautiful artwork.

The “Prayers from the Heart” calendar is available exclusively from Revive Our Hearts, and we’ll send you a copy when you make a donation. You can donate by phone. Call 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com.

Tomorrow Henry Blackaby explains why we need repentance. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

 Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

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