What is the connection between faith and repentance?

Michael Beasley explains in this video that there is an important connection between faith and repentance. They are indelibly linked. By faith, we understand that we need forgiveness and we need Christ. Apart from faith, the natural man does not believe that he is in sin. 

A person who is not exercising faith in God will have a lofty view of himself and not see his sin as an offense to God. Faith gives us the object that we are going to when we talk about repentance. There is a turning from one thing to another. Faith and repentance go hand in hand. A genuine believer will turn from their sin to God. When God draws us in faith, He draws us away from sin to a hope and trust in Him. 

Acts 20:21 (NKJV) - "[T]estifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." 

When it comes to repentance and faith, we have to understand that there is a very important connection between these two. In fact, they're indelibly linked. By faith, we understand that we need Christ and by faith we understand that we as sinners need forgiveness. Apart from faith, the natural man does not actually believe that he is in sin. A person who is not walking in faith and exercising faith in God will have an overestimated view of himself.

He won't see his sin as sinful. He won't see his sin as being an egregious offense to God. Instead, he'll make excuses for his sins. Faith is important because it gives us the object that we are going to when we're talking about repentance. Paul, writing to the Thessalonian church, committed them for their progress in the gospel.

And he talked about their beginnings and how it is that they had turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God. And the reality is that there is a turning from one thing to another. And this is really, in a sense, what we're talking about when we talk about repentance anyway. Faith and repentance, they go hand in hand. The genuine believer is going to turn from their sin to God.

This is why repentance is genuine, if there's a genuine turning. But faith directs us to the object of faith, and that is God himself. So really these are two sides of the same coin. These are the two things that are really acting and working at the same time. When God is drawing us in faith, he's drawing us away from sin to a hope and trust in him.