Repentance – God’s command to sinful mankind.

Repentance – God’s command to sinful mankind.

Mathew 3:1-3

Defending the Gospel against “Cheap Grace”

Repentance: The act of definitively turning away from our sins and seeking after God instead.

Question: Is Repentance optional to become a Christian?

Answer: No. We must forsake our sins in order to receive salvation. This command goes against our carnal, sin loving hearts but is necessary for salvation; otherwise, God would not have made it so emphatically clear in His word.

Matthew 3:1-3

3 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” ³ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’ ”

Acts 2:38

³⁸ Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the ^[a]remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 55:6-7

⁶ Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
⁷ Let the ^[a]wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

Luke 5:32

³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Luke 13:3

³ I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Luke 24:46-47

⁴⁶ Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, ^[a]and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Acts 20:20-25

²⁰ how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, ²¹ testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Luke 15:7

⁷ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine ^[a]just persons who need no repentance.

Don’t believe in “cheap grace”

A required component of the gospel message is repentance. Repentance is necessary in order to experience saving faith in Jesus Christ. It is not enough to simply give intellectual ascent that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and ask him to take away our sins if we have no intention to forsake the sins that so offended Holy God in the first place!  Being “saved” apart from repenting of our sins is no salvation at all.

Think about this analogy:

As part of your church’s maximum security prison outreach; you visit a shackled, convicted murderer under high security guard supervision. You are escorted into the felon’s cell and seated across from Him separated by a plain wooden table. After warning Him of the eternal judgement to come for his murders; you begin pleading with the man that he repent of His sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin.

He responds:

“I really desire to be saved from the eternal consequences of my heinous actions and truly believe Jesus Christ died for my sins…That’s why I’ll enjoy strangling you to death all the more with the knowledge that my sins are forgiven!”

With that the convicted murderer lunges for your throat with a devilish grin only to be violently snapped back in place by the iron shackles that restrain Him.

Worshiping the LORD through Praise and Thanksgiving

Worshiping the LORD through Praise and Thanksgiving

What role does praise play in our worship of the LORD? The Bible tells us we are to praise the unsurpassed glory, majesty and holiness of the LORD. The LORD is perfect in every imaginable way and His perfection commands adoration and worship. To deny or disobey this command is an act of irreverence that amounts to the sin of idolatry.

Psalm 29:1-2

29 Give^[a] unto the Lord, O you mighty ones,
Give unto the Lord glory and strength.
^2 [b]Give unto the Lord the glory ^[c]due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the ^[d]beauty of holiness.

Jude 25

²⁵ To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Exodus 20:3-5

³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁵ you shall not bow down to them nor ^[a]serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting^[b] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Worshipping through Music:

Keeping with this principle; praise music MUST elevate the LORD.

Psalm 30:4

⁴ Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His,
And give thanks at the remembrance of ^[a]His holy name

Psalm 115:1

115 Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
But to Your name give glory,
Because of Your mercy,
Because of Your truth.

What role does thanksgiving play in the worship of the LORD? The Bible tells us we are to always give thanks to the LORD. The LORD is full of unfailing love and we are commanded to give thanks and express gratitude for the LORD’s kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. To deny this command is an act of contempt that amounts to the sin of rebellion.

Psalm 103:1-5

103 Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
² Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
³ Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
⁴ Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies,
⁵ Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

¹⁸ In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Psalm 117:1-2

117 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!
^[a]Laud Him, all you peoples!
² For His merciful kindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the Lord endures forever.

Below is a simple pattern to begin thanking the LORD in your life:

1)      Thank Him for creating you and making you unique.

Psalm 139:14, Ephesians 2:10, Genesis 5:2

2)      Thank Him for sustaining your life.

Colossians 1:17, 2 Corinthians 9:10, Mathew 5:45

3)       Thank Him for saving you from your sin and giving you eternal life through Jesus Christ.

1 John 2:12, John 3:16, John 11:25

Water Baptism – A first step in obedience

Water Baptism – A first step in obedience

Unfortunately; clear Biblical teaching on New Testament water baptism has become so muddled over the millennia’s that biblical understanding of water baptism has become as polluted as the Jordan River. I am taking a humorous tone to lighten my grief for the general confusion and indifference there is towards this fairly simple New Testament ordinance.

Matthew 28:19-20 

¹⁹ Go ^[a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” ^[b]Amen.

Acts 2:38 

³⁸ Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the ^[a]remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture teaches that a believer in Jesus Christ (The truly converted) is commanded to be baptised (submerged in water) as a public profession of their faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Water baptism is a symbolic analogy of dying to sin (death and burial) and being made alive (new birth) in Christ.

Romans 6:3-7 

³ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be ^[a]done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been ^[b]freed from sin.

If you have not already obeyed our Lord Jesus Christ; I urge you in His name to repent and be baptised!

A New Covenant to replace the Old Covenant

A New Covenant to replace the Old Covenant

As already mentioned in Chapter 8, the old covenant was imperfect and therefore needed to be replaced. The main problem with the old covenant is that the appointed yearly sacrifices were not able to take away sins.

Hebrews 8:7

⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

Hebrews 10:4

⁴ For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

Hebrews 10:11

¹¹ And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

Hebrews 10:1

10 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.

Jesus Christ had to do something new and absolutely radical. He had to completely fulfill God’s law to enact a New Covenant!

Hebrews 10:5-7

⁵ Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
⁶ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
⁷ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’ ”

Matthew 5:17-19 ¹⁷ “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one ^[a]jot or one ^[b]tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. ¹⁹ Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus enacted a new covenant by living a sinless life, dying a perfect sacrifice, and resurrecting triumphantly over the grave. His sinless bodily offering and shed blood was accepted by God to completely purchase our redemption. Amen

Hebrews 9:14-15

¹⁴ how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without ^[a]spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ¹⁵ And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

1 Corinthians 11:24-25 

²⁴ and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ^[a]“Take, eat; this is My body which is ^[b]broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”²⁵ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

Hebrews 10:16-17

¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” ¹⁷ then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Old vs. New Covenant Quiz

Q: Who made the old covenanting and with whom?

A: Exodus 34:27

Q: Who made the new covenant and with whom?

A: Hebrews 8:10

Q: Why did we need a new covenant and why could the Israelites not keep the first covenant?

A: Hebrews 9:12, Romans 8:3

Q: Who can get in on the new covenant and how?

A: Galatians 3:28, Romans 10:9