Jesus Christ and his apostles called people to repentance as the only pathway into God’s kingdom. However, today few consider the call to repent, or understand what it demands of them. Repentance is more than a feeling or change of behavior; it engages the whole person to turn from sin to God. Without repenting, we are neither permitted nor fit to enter heaven. With repentance, our lives bear all kinds of practical and beautiful fruit. For repentance springs from a supernatural work of God whereby he gives a new heart to a sinner.

Well, it's great to be with you Scott Brown has assigned me two texts and I will read those now from God's Word and we'll pray and preach to you Let's turn to Matthew 4 Matthew 4 Verses 12 through 17 and the key verse here is verse 17. Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast and the borders of Zebulun and Naphtaliem. That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, the land of Zebulun and the land of Nephilim, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then turn with me please to Acts 2, to the fruits of repentance, verses 37 through 47.

Acts 2, 37 through 47. Now when they heard this, that is Peter's Pentecostal sermon, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort saying, save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3, 000 souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, imparted them to all men as every man had need. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, enable us to draw near to thee this evening. Let the drawing power of thy spirit move us to embrace thee by faith through the merits and person of thy well beloved Son. And Lord, we come this evening praying that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down and visit this conference, and visit this vine, and work mightily in the hearts of many souls among us.

Lord, we come humbly to thee, confessing our sin, Confessing that there's so much about us that as we just heard must change. Our frequent sin, our willful sin, our sin against light and knowledge, our sin in our thought life, in the words we speak, in the things we do. Lord, we come ashamed. We come ashamed that all of this flows from a fountain of pollution within us. We grieve that we must confess that we are all together as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is are as filthy rags.

Lord, though many of us can say that thy free grace has renewed us, has refreshed us, has brought us to repentance, Yet we confess that old rebellions still surface far too often. Help us to never stop grieving over sin, to never stop hating sin, to never stop repenting over sin. Deliver us, O God, from sin in every shape, from the gall of sin as well as the sugar of sin. And help us to kill every aspect of ourselves that lives for self rather than for thee. Help us never to be content with the spiritual progress we have made.

Oh God forgive every thought, every word, every action that rises us against thy will from within us. And Make us more godly more like thy son more spiritual more God-centered Lord help us help us for sin even Mars our prayers Mars are speaking Mars our most religious activity so turn us back to the afresh We pray and bless everyone gathered here tonight Give us genuine repentance for the first time or by renewal, We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, the doctrine of repentance is expounded 60 times in the New Testament. It's the foundation stone, one of the great foundation stones of Christianity. Jesus said, repent ye and believe the gospel.

That same doctrine is propounded by the apostles of whom we read that again and again, Jesus sent them forth, Mark 6-12, to preach that men should repent. When Jesus heard of the murder of some Galileans by Pilate, He says in Luke 13, except ye repent, you shall likewise perish. When he ascended into heaven, he said to his apostles, preach repentance and remission of sins in my name among all nations. And so the apostles continued that ministry of repentance. The concluding words of Peter's famous sermon really are these, repent and be baptized.

And then you read in the subsequent sermon, repent ye therefore and be converted, as we already heard tonight. The Apostle Paul took that same theme into his ministry wherever he went. He said in Acts 20-21, I've kept nothing back that was profitable unto you, Ephesians, but have showed you, have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord, Jesus Christ. Repentance, the doctrine of repentance, lies at the very core of the Christian faith, the Christian gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what I've been asked to do tonight is basically three things.

I've been asked to preach first of all on what exactly is repentance. We want to look then at what it isn't, what it is, and then I want to take you to John Calvin as one of the great reformers that we commemorate his teaching in this 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Expound to you just a little bit how he expounded repentance from the Bible. And then secondly, we look at why is repentance essential? We'll look particularly there at Matthew 4, 17.

And then thirdly, looking at the fruits of true repentance from Acts 2, 37 through 47. So what is repentance? Why is it necessary? And what are its fruits? Matthew 4, 17 says, from that time, the time when John the Baptist was receding and Jesus was coming to the fore, Jesus, having now been baptized, having been ordained by his father through John the Baptist with the spirit in full measure, began to preach.

And he began to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So the word repent, may I say it this way, was the first word from the mouth of Jesus as he began to preach. And the word repent there is metaneo, which means to change one's mind. It means a radical change. It means change really in three areas.

Number one, an inward change of belief about how you view God, how you view yourself, how you view your sins, how you view the enormity, the heinousness, the character of sin against such a well-doing God as we serve. But number two, repentance grasps the heart with its feelings. When Christ explained the repentance that brings a person into God's kingdom, he said blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn over sin. Blessed are those that are meek.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness. You know, hunger and thirst are the strongest of all affections. Repentance arises from a heart broken over sin, a heart thirsting after God, a godly sorrow that works repentance and cannot do without God. But there's a third component to repentance. Not only is there an inward change of beliefs and a grasping of the heart with all its emotions and affections, but also a change in behavior.

True repentance produces fruit, a turning away from injustice, a turning toward love. Paul preached to the Jews and Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works fitting for repentance, Acts 26, 20. So these three parts of repentance go together where there is true repentance. Sometimes it seems a person has maybe one of these but not the others. Many experience a change of mind in some way.

They're instructed they know better now, but they continue to defy God. Some are even exercised in heart and conscience, yet they continue to live freely in sin. Some amend their ways, but they don't have a love to God and a hatred to sin. Some have tremendous knowledge, they're convinced in their mind they need to repent, their hearts may even be uneasy, but they never reform their lives, they never break with sin. You see, all these forms of repentance are false repentance.

Where true repentance is worked, there's a change of mind, a change of heart, and a change in the course of life. Well, that opens the door for us, doesn't it? To consider what repentance is not, and then to consider what it is. The Bible has a lot to say about what repentance is not through the examples of those who did some kind of repenting, but didn't truly repent. Repentance is not merely fear of damnation.

Many people listen to sermons, and they can be moved. If the preacher talks about the torments of hell and the horrible judgments upon those that perish. They can be struck with terror in their hearts, filled with alarm, even moved to tears. But the Bible says the devils also believe and tremble. And they're not saved.

Felix trembled about the judgment to come under the preaching of Paul, but there was no genuine repentance. My friend, except you repent, You shall perish. But then secondly, repentance is not merely being almost persuaded. Paul preached to King Agrippa. He was almost persuaded to be a Christian.

He was a man who listened to the word with some degree of openness, and yet he proved to be nothing but a stoning, grounded hearer. My friend, except you truly repent, you shall perish. And thirdly, repentance is not merely a bowed head and a bent knee. There are outward acts of humbling ourselves before God that sometimes men impressively do, but don't genuinely repent. Ahab was apprehended by Elijah when he gained the Garden of Naboth by means of deceit and murder, and being caught, he mourned.

Scripture says he rent his clothes, he put on sackcloth, and he went softly before God. But soon afterward, this same man rebelled against God, showing he was still impenitent. My friend, accept you truly repent. You shall likewise perish. Fourthly, repentance is not merely confessing sins without forsaking them.

Lots of people do that. They've got intentions to do better. Martin Luther said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Never realizing that the unspeakable awfulness of their sins will condemn them to hell. Never understanding the enormity of their sin.

You know, one of the best books written in the medieval age was by a man named Anselm, and the book was titled Why God, Man? Why Did Christ have to become man? And it's a dialogue, really, between Anselm himself, as a wise pastor, and Bozo, a beginning Christian, who sounds kind of foolish, and he asks many foolish questions. And yet, some good questions. But finally, Anselm gets frustrated with Bozo, and he says to him, Bozo, your problem is that you don't understand grace, because you don't understand the enormity of your sin.

And you see, in repentance, often what happens is people have a kind of external repentance. Their minds, their consciences speak, and They have some degree of sorrow, especially due to the consequences of sin. But they don't experience what we read in Proverbs 28, 13. He that covers his sins shall not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy. You need to forsake them.

My friend, except you repent, you shall likewise perish. And then repentance is not merely feeling remorse and doing some good works. If that was the case, Judas repented. He confessed his sin to the priest, he returned his money, he went out from the presence of these evil men, but he had no repentance, He hung himself. He never turned back to the Lord in faith.

You see, you can do works out of a sense of guilt, but you can never turn back to the Lord and die in utter despair. My friend, except you repent, you shall likewise perish. And then finally, repentance is not merely seeking to avoid God's judgment. That's what the old divines called legal repentance. Repenting only out of fear for hell.

Repenting because the law awakens you to a certain need, but it doesn't lead you to the gospel as it should. And you don't break your love for sin, and you don't fall in love with the loveliness of Jesus Christ, shining in the gospel, who woos and wins your heart to turn back to God in love. My friend, accept your repent. You shall likewise perish. So what is true repentance?

Well, the core of true repentance, as we already heard, and you're probably here again, is turning to God. We had an old minister who put it this way. He said, when you're in the army, you're marching in a certain direction. And when the drill starts, it says to you, stop, halt, about, face, forward march. You see, what happens in repentance, and that's why in some languages, like the Dutch language, it's a synonym for conversion.

What happens in repentance is that you completely turn around. You've got your back to God by nature. But boys and girls, teenagers, you see, you can be outwardly religious and have your back to God. But what God does is he stops you, he turns you around, and now you march toward him as a sinner, as a repenting sinner, and you want to do his will and you want to obey him and you want to live to his glory and you grieve that you can't and so you repent in dust and ashes before the living God. Westminster Shorter Catechism gives an excellent definition it says this repentance unto life is a saving grace, so it's a gift of God.

God alone can give it, whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, that's important too, if you don't have any hope in his mercy at all, he won't go to God, you'd be afraid, you'd cower, you'd run away. Doth with grief and hatred of his sin, grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. That's it. You can't improve on that definition. Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of the true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience.

So repentance springs from a supernatural and inward revelation from God, which causes a consciousness of what I am in his sight. And I condemn myself, and I sorrow over my sin. I have a holy horror and hatred of sin, and I turn from that sin to seek the living God. You know, a few weeks ago, I was actually brought to initial repentance, initial conversion, in Yellowstone National Park, and I went back for the first time 50 years later, a few weeks ago, when I was doing a conference in Wyoming. And I said to my wife, I want to go back to that spot where God stopped me, where I became a lost sinner before a holy God and cried out for mercy.

And we went back there and I was afraid I couldn't find the campgrounds. I knew the where, there's 10 of them in the park or so, and I knew about where it was. So I went to the information desk. I said, is there a campground in that area? And they said yes.

I said, has it been there for 50 years? Oh yes, they said longer. So I went there and we pulled in and the memories just came flooding back. I knew this was a spot as soon as I saw it. I could even locate the exact camping spot we had.

It was either one or two, number 70 or number 72. And I said to the lady at the front desk, I said, has this campground changed at all in the last 50 years? She said, absolutely not, sir. She proudly showed me a picture from 1939, not a single new building. It was just the right same spot.

I was grateful. And I went and sat on the very park bench where I was when the Lord stopped me. And my wife and I, we got down on our knees and we prayed to God. Thank God, set up an Ebenezer stone. Without God, my friend, I never, ever, ever would have repented.

I would have gone my own way. But God, but God, but God, that's the life of every Christian. He brings us to repentance. He brings us to this sorrow over sin. And the whole way home from Yellowstone all the way to Michigan, I was in the back seat of the car just weeping over my sin.

I went to every friend I had, and I had a lot of friends at that time. Playing on the sports teams, being vice president of the student council. But I just went to them all and I said, you know, I'm a lost sinner before God. This was a public school. Didn't know what I was talking about.

I said, I'm a lost sinner before God. I need to find God. Maybe someday I can befriend you again, but right now, I've got a priority in my life. I need to find God I Came home after school every day and I went I went up to my bedroom I just read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation prayed meditated read my dad's entire Bookcase of of Puritan books. That's where I got my love for books.

They gave me hope, they gave me encouragement, and a year later, took a whole year, but maybe 18 months even, before I found freedom. But I could not rest without God. You see, when there's true repentance, you can't go on without the living God. I must have him, even though I can't be converted. I can't convert myself.

So there's an impossibility, there's a necessity. And the sinner at the crossroads of impossibility and necessity cries out to God for mercy, Lord, do for me what I can't do for myself. He repents with heart and soul. Now whether that happens to you more suddenly, whether it happens to you more gradually, You know what I mean if you're a Christian. You could no longer do without God.

You could no longer do with the outward things, with outward nominal church membership. You had to have God. You had to have God to be more real for you than the chairs you're sitting on now. You had to find salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what happens when you genuinely repent.

God shines his holy law into your life. You see you've transgressed against God your entire lifetime. Every second of my life, I'm a sinner. You know, when I was trying to repatch my life when God first convicted me of sin, I really told, at one point I told the Lord, I go to bed every night, I try to think back on my day, I try to confess every sin I committed. And I told the Lord one night, Lord if you have a little more patience with me, I'll be as perfect as the angels in heaven.

My stupidity, I told him that. And the next day, I could take you to the spot at Lloyd Norox High School, Kalamazoo, Michigan. I could take you to the square in the sidewalk where the Lord shone a light into my soul with this thought that overturned my whole life. Not only are you not close to being perfect, but you have never loved God for one second above all your entire life, and you've never for one second loved your neighbor as yourself. Thus, you are a breaker of the entire law every second of your life, every tick of the clock, tick, tick, tick, you're sinning, sinning, sinning, heaping up sin.

It was that moment in my life where I gave up all help of self-reformation. God has to do it. God who brought me to repentance has to show me his son, has to show me his mercy. And mercy can only be found at the cross of Calvary. Through him who says, for Total sinners, I am a total savior.

That is my hope, that's my all-sufficient hope, my only hope, my sure hope, my secure hope, my eternal hope. It's all about Jesus. Well, you see, that is John Calvin's doctrine of repentance. Calvin being a staple reformer speaks for many reformers. And when Scott Brown asked me to bring to you also the Reformation doctrine of repentance, I realized that if I brought you the essence of what Calvin said, I'm really fulfilling his request.

And this is what Calvin said. Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of him. And it consists in the mortification of our flesh and of the old man in the vivification of the spirit. What Calvin really says is that four things go on, Four things go on inside the sinner when he repents. Number one, he turns to God from the heart.

Now, Calvin doesn't limit repentance to an inward grace. It also has outward fruits, but nevertheless, the heart is the center of it. Repentance is essentially at the core of its being a heart matter. And it views the redirection and the transformation of a believer's entire being from sin to righteousness as an absolute necessity. And that's very much unlike, you see, the Roman Catholic Church's emphasis on the outward aspects of repentance more than on the inward.

Reformers turned it around. The inward are accented, and that has fruit on the outward. They underscore those inward aspects, because God has to burrow down to the depths of your soul, show you how you've been hardened in your externalism, he has to foster not just an outward repentance, but an inward evangelical repentance, rather than a legal repentance, Calvin says. A sorrowful repentance that flows, he writes, primarily from the filial, that is childlike, fear of God. So that's the second thing.

Fearing God, Calvin says, purely and earnestly, To fear God for the reformers meant to value God's smiles above the smiles of men, and to value God's frowns above the frowns of men. So the fear of God stirs within the believer all those accompanying emotions, Calvin says, and attitudes that are part and parcel of genuine spiritual life, including things like carefulness, and indignation against sin, and desire for God, and zeal for him and his kingdom. And perhaps at times Calvin says, especially when we stumble, even dismay and anguish of soul, Repentance is moved by the fear of God. You want to please him. You want to serve him.

You want to say immediately when you're born again, like Saul of Tarsus said, Lord what wilt thou have me to do? But thirdly, Calvin says, the fear of God is not only turning to God from the heart and fearing God purely and earnestly, but it's also mortification. Dying to self into sin. Putting the sword through sin. Mortification is essential, Calvin writes, because although sin ceases to reign in the believer, it does not cease to dwell in him.

Concupiscence abides within us so long as we abide in the flesh. And Calvin uses the words the flesh as the totality of man's nature in the state of moral corruption, resulting directly from the sin of Adam. So the believer is never entirely freed from that sin in this life. He must always battle against sin. He must always cry out with the Apostle Paul, the evil that I would not find myself doing.

And the good that I would I find myself not doing. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. You see, Romans 7 shows that mortification is a lifelong activity. Calvin says, in the saints, until they are divested of their mortal bodies, there is always sin.

For in their flesh there resides that depravity of inordinate desiring which contends against Christ and his righteousness. And so the Spirit gives grace to persevere in mortification, to die daily to sin, and to my righteousness, my own righteousness, and to live unto Christ. Now, for Calvin, you see, that dying daily was good preparation for eternity. Because in heaven, you don't have to die anymore. But as Spurgeon put it, The best way to be prepared to die is to be dying every day to your own righteousness so that when you actually have to die, you just have to die one more time.

And you live to God forever. You see, that's the joy of heaven. When you get to heaven, you no longer have to say, evil is present with me. Puritan John Olin said, sin is the greatest burden of every believer all throughout his entire life, even though it's forgiven. Oh, that I would sin again against my savior.

But oh, for the day. Sin free in Emmanuel's land. Now Calvin says the believer must put the sin to death then every day using the sword of the spirit. The word of God. You use the word of God to kill sin.

But also, God uses two other things, that he works in you, Calvin says. The first is self-denial. Self-denial is the inward dimension of mortification, Calvin believed. And what he means by that, you see, is that as you deny yourself the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, as you involve yourself in suppressing and killing evil desires and affections and thoughts by the power of the Spirit and by the Word of God. You turn more and more to God as the trajectory of your life.

And that's the way it ought to be. Self-denial uproots our love of self, and it replaces us with a spirit of gentleness and helpfulness, says Calvin. Self-denial is the foundation of neighbor love. And self-denial, when sanctified by the spirit, helps us find true happiness because it helps us to do what we were created for, namely to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. But God also uses cross-bearing, cross-bearing, Calvin says, to help us exercise mortification.

What does he mean by that? Well, he says, as self-denial is the inward dimension of mortification, cross-bearing is the outward dimension of mortification. Because Christ's life, he argues, was a perpetual cross, our life as followers of him must also include suffering so that we can be sanctified for glory. Suffering affliction willingly helps us wean ourselves from this world and from sin. And then Calvin makes a staggering statement, which I've repeated over and over to myself over the years.

Through cross bearing, we are trained in patience, we are chastened for our pride, we are instructed in obedience, and we are roused to hope. Calvin says cross-bearing is strong medicine for us, but God uses crosses and afflictions in our lives to help us set right priorities so that we can deny ourselves and repent before him and mortify our sin. Think back in your own life if you're a believer. When did you walk closest to God? Wasn't it just at those times when you were most heavily afflicted?

When was your conscience most tender? When did you hate sin? When were you most circumspect? It was when you were cross bearing and when you were exercising self denial. And so self denial conforms us to Christ inwardly and directly, whereas cross-bearing centers on outward Christ-likeness.

And together, says Calvin, they teach us to esteem Christ more and the blessings of heaven far above this present life. And this impacts how we live in this world. Now, Calvin has this thing called the Complexitore Oppositorum. And that's in Latin, but it basically means it's the complexity of opposites. And Calvin puts it this way.

In this life, the believer has an intinimous relationship with the world. On the one hand, Over here, the world seems like a sepulcher. It's filled with sin. You walk in the smoke of sin. You battle sin in your own heart.

You long to be done with sin. You long to be with the Lord forever. Oh, that all sin and me were dead. And you grieve, having to abide in this world. On the other hand, way over here, no one enjoys this world more than the Christian, Calvin says, Because you dedicate everything to God.

You dedicate your marriage to God, your children to God. You don't even view your children as strictly your own, but they're loaned to you from God. You want to give everything to his honor and glory. The car you drive, the house you live in, the work you do. You want it all to be for the glory of God.

And you want it all to be in the service of God. And through that, you get a happiness that the world never gets when it lives for itself. And so Calvin says, there's no one so happy in this world as a Christian. But the other is true at the same time, Calvin says. So the complexity of the opposites is that they come together in the believer's everyday experience and they make you walk a line of circumspection and moderation so you don't get giddy with your joy, nor do you get overly despair with your sorrow, but you bring the both together and you look to Jesus and you run the race set before you because he's the author and finisher of your faith.

You set aside sin and you look to him. That's the way to live in this world, Calvin says. Mortification, important part of his doctrine of repentance. And then vivification. Being made alive in Christ through the Spirit.

Repentance, repentance, Calvin says, is also characterized by walking in newness of life and joy. Mortification is not an end in itself, but the necessary prelude to vivification, for when we kill sin and walk in newness of life, we know the joy of looking to God and looking away from sin. Calvin defines vivification as the desire to live in a holy and devoted manner, a desire arising from rebirth as if it were said that man dies to himself, that he may begin in this world to live to God. Now for Calvin, vivification involves three things. First, participation in Christ unto righteousness.

Listen to Calvin. For if we truly partake in Christ's death, our old man is crucified by his power, and the body of sin perishes, that the corruption of original nature may no longer thrive. If we share in Christ's resurrection, then we are raised to newness of life to correspond with the righteousness of God. Second, vivification involves a spirit-governed life. It involves living a life in which the Spirit of God lives and rules and dominates so that even though we still grieve over remaining sin, sin does not have dominion over us.

So vivification is being made alive to God and to Christ's righteousness so that we increasingly give ourselves to possessing and to exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit. And out of that joy and the vivification within us, the springing up of the Spirit's work within us, as it were, as the fruits of the resurrection of Christ. That moves us to do good works, and to live lives of usefulness and fruitfulness, and lives of service. A Spirit-governed life, Calvin writes, conforms the believer ethically to the will of God so that he is inclined to do good works and becomes a peculiar people set apart by God, zealous for godly living. So such a life bears positive fruits.

Vivified believers operate by an inner impulse to fulfill the law of God by loving God and by loving their neighbor, and by striving against the power of sin and the power of Satan, which Calvin says the Bible means to speak about when it says, cease to do evil and learn to do well. So for Calvin, you see, and that's true of all the Reformers, we heard it from Luther in Thesis No. 1, repentance is a lifelong process. It's not the beginning of the Christian life, said Calvin only, but it is the Christian life. It's rooted in the redemption accomplished by Christ's death and resurrection that aims for the final, ultimate, complete, beatific restoration of the image of God in the believer on the great day to come.

So here, when we genuinely repent, we are, as it were, participating in that process by which the Spirit will work in us a readiness to be with Christ in glory forever. So through daily repentance, we as believers grieve over and forsake our sins, and through the daily exercise of vivifying faith, we take refuge in Christ every day for forgiveness by faith so that faith and repentance, as Calvin says, are inseparable from one another. Two sides of one coin. You can't repent without believing they repenting. You can't believe without penitently believing.

The two belong together. Repentance, Calvin writes, is a turning to God as when we frame ourselves in all our life to obey Him, but faith is a receiving of the grace offered us in Christ, such that the one, repentance, is an inevitable result of the other, which is faith. No one will ever reverence God, says Calvin, but him who trusts that God is propitious to him. So repentance naturally and immediately flows out of faith. And hence, for Calvin, the great need to use the spiritual disciplines and the means that foster faith and repentance.

That is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. I find it so interesting that for Calvin, repentance begins with self-denial. I'm talking about evangelical repentance. And he says, self-denial is the beginning of the Christian life as well as its continuation. But in our day today with our soft, easy, one-inch-deep Christianity, self-denial is almost a non-existent theme, much less cross-bearing.

But you see, for Calvin, these themes are fundamental, repentance, self-denial, cross-bearing, to the Christian life, to the Christian walk, to our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. May I ask you tonight, What do you think of sin? Can you say with Calvin that it's an abomination in the sight of God? Do you hate it? Do you see it as a spiritual insanity, as an enormity, as a contradiction of the very character of God?

Do you hate sin? Do you wish all sin in you were dead? You know, the Puritans were really good at developing this whole theme that Calvin laid out so clearly. As the reformer successors, Stephen Sharnock once said, every time you knowingly sin, at that moment you're a practical atheist because if you really believe that God was here and present right now and you loved him, you wouldn't think of sinning against him. Practical atheist every time I sin?

Wow. You see, the Reformers and the Puritans had this enormous view of sin. Jeremiah Burroughs wrote a whole book called the evil of evils. And in that book, his theme is this, that there is more evil in the smallest drop of sin than there is evil in the greatest affliction we can ever encounter. And that the believer would rather die than not sin, rather die than sin, that is.

Oh God, help us. Help us to hate sin more, to love Christ more, and to want to live more to thy honor and glory. You know, someone is going to speak to us on Psalm 51. You know, Arthur Hildesham preached 100 and some sermons on Psalm 51 about repentance, a godly Puritan. Thomas Watson spoke on it too.

But here's what Watson said, if you really repent, if you really repent, first of all you get a sight of your sin, you get sorrow for sin, not like the world sorrows but a godly sorrow for sin, you confess your sin, you feel shame for sin, you have a hatred for sin, and you turn from sin. Now, why is this all necessary? Why don't you just say to people, believe the gospel and be done with all this sin business, and you're just in Christ and you live happily forever after? Well, Jesus says, from that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is in him. There's three reasons why repentance is absolutely necessary.

Number one, it's God's command. This is not an indicative, this is an imperative. Repent. When you don't repent, you disobey God. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, Acts 27, 30.

So if that's the only reason, that's sufficient. The Reformers used to say, if God commands it, that settles it. But secondly, we must also repent because of God's kingdom. Notice what our Lord says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You see, when God comes as king, it's always for salvation and judgment.

The kingdom means that we stand at a crossroads where one path leads to life and the other to destruction so that we cannot coast into the kingdom without repentance, for we are sinners. Repent for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We're rebels against the Almighty. We need to repent. The wages of unrepented sin is everlasting death.

We must repent or face eternal punishment. That is what Jesus is saying in our text, as it was what John the Baptist was saying, as it is what Paul is saying, as it is what the Reformers and Puritans were saying. You see, I urge you, my friend, if you've never truly repented before God, that you get on your face tonight when you go back to your bedroom and get on your knees and ask God to show you that every second of your life you're heaping up sin before him and repent before his presence, before his face, and realize the longer you go on in sin, the greater your debt becomes before the living judge of heaven and of earth. What shall it profit a man if he gained a whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for soul?

You've got one soul to win and one soul to lose. If you don't repent, you'll lose the most important thing that belongs to you, your own soul. That's why Jesus began, that's why John the Baptist began, that's why Peter began, that's why Paul began with this message when they preached. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field, Jesus said, that is worthy of losing all in order to find that treasure.

For the kingdom is joy and peace and righteousness in the Holy Ghost. The kingdom is fellowship with righteous men and women and the holy angels of God. The kingdom is everlasting glory and beatific joy, but you can't get to that kingdom without becoming who you are before God, to receive what he is for poor sinners who put their hope in him. God himself alone in his kingdom can make you truly happy. You must repent for the kingdom's sake.

You must repent for it's God's command. But thirdly, you must repent because of God's son. The text says Jesus, who's the son of God, began to preach and say, this is the best preacher ever, friends. This is the only perfect authoritative preacher whose sermons were perfect, and he began to say, repent for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's the Christ, the anointed who's speaking.

So what will you do on the day of judgment if you come before God and God says, did you ever repent? Did you refuse to believe? Did you refuse to obey my own son who came to you and said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand? When you knew and when you preached to you that that son who called you to repentance is a mighty savior to give you repentance, as Acts 5, 31 says, and forgiveness. He's the savior who gives you what you cannot do.

He's the victorious last Adam who obeyed God perfectly in your place. He calls you to repent. The one who gave the ransom price for sinners. The one who was willing to save you. The one who looks with compassion upon us in our sin and in our guilt and says, come unto me, all you that are laboring and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

How can you refuse that savior? How can you not repent when that savior invites you to repent and to come to him just as you are. Repentance is absolutely necessary, even as it is at the same time the gift of God. Well, that leads us to our last thought How does true repentance show itself? And that's where X to is so helpful Peter's preaching and actually they they interrupt his sermon it seems like Especially when he says in verse 36, which is really the second or third time, he implied that this is all their guilt.

Therefore, let the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. And they can't stand it. They pour out their heart, 3, 000 of them, men and brethren, what shall we do? They're pricked in their heart. Puritans used to call it compunction.

It's like an arrow is sent into their soul, and they groan under their iniquity and they say, men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter says, repent, repent. And then for the rest of the chapter, really, it's just an outline of the fruits of their genuine repentance. One after another. Let me look at them briefly with you, very briefly with you.

Number one is perseverance under God's preached word. You see, when you truly repent, you read in verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. That means they just didn't come to church, but steadfastly, they drank in every word the apostles said. True repentance breeds a love for preaching, a love for the Bible, a love for the steady spiritual appetite for biblical preaching. As Peter would later say, 1 Peter 2, 2, that they longed for the word like babies crave milk.

We've got our first two grandchildren recently. And wow, it's wonderful. But boy, does it bring back memories. When they cry, how they crave milk. And then as soon as they have it, they're so content you can't believe they were crying the way they were just minutes before.

But that's what a believer's like, you see. He craves the word of God. They persevered steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. They're willing, you see, to believe the Bible's teachings. They're willing to follow the Bible's commandments.

They don't wanna live hypocritically. They wanna live in the mirror of the word of God. They wanna please God. They wanna lay aside sin. They wanna be steadfast, mature believers.

Repentance, you see, has opened the packed ground. It has plowed up the stony ground. It has rooted out the thorns and weeds so that the heart receives the word like good soil receives seed. So how are we doing? Are you steadfastly persevering in the apostles doctrine?

That's a fruit of true repentance. Number two, public adherence to the true church. Verse 42 also says they continued steadfastly in fellowship. Those who have turned back to God cherish fellowship. They cherish time spent in spiritual friendships because when we fellowship with the saints, John says we're fellowshiping in essence with the triune God himself.

It's not a casual association we have at church with the people of God. It's committed membership, committed fellowship. Believers, repentant believers say, I want to be reckoned, I want to be counted as part of the church. I love the brethren, and I want more added to the church daily, such as should be saved, as verse 47 says. So you see, the most visible and glorious church at the time was led by those who had crucified Jesus, converted Jews, turned away from powerful false teachers, identified with the followers of the crucified and risen Lord, and they loved one another.

They loved the church, they loved the bride of Jesus. They weren't ashamed of the church of God. Despite his flaws, despite his sorrows, they delighted to be with the church. They delighted to be one with the church. That's why Scott was so right an hour ago or so when he said, use this conference, use the means of grace to solidify the church, be an asset to the church, not a detriment or a drag upon the church.

After all, she's the bride of Christ. Christ died for her. We ought to live for her. Public adherence to the true church is a mark of genuine repentance. Third, profession of faith through ordinances is a mark of genuine repentance.

They continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread. Now some say that could be a reference to hospitality, fellowship over meals, well you can throw that in if you like, but it seems like, to me, it's participation in the Lord's Supper. Repentant sinners cling to Christ's dying work, and they're powerfully drawn to that ordinance by which they remember his cross and fellowship with him in his broken body and his shed blood. But also, Peter tells us, repent and be baptized. He gives us another ordinance, another sacrament.

Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. And they that gladly received his word were baptized. Verse 41. In other words, they openly professed their faith in Jesus through baptism, through the Lord's Supper, just as he commanded. Four, participation in the prayers of the church.

Verse 42 says they continued steadfastly in prayers. You see, repentance made them into people who depended on God, people who were God seekers, people who were wrestlers with God, people who poured out their hearts for God. Their pride received a fatal wound and they knew they needed God and they knew that prayer is a life breath of believers. They wanted to commune with God and they know that God communes with us through his word and we commune back to him through prayer, so they came to persist, to persevere, continue steadfastly in prayer. Private prayer, of course, but this is speaking about corporate prayer.

They gather together to pray. I've said so many times in so many churches across this land, I'm afraid we won't see reformation or revival in truth until our prayer meetings are overflowing. God almost always moves his people to a spirit of prayer before he brings revival. And what a sad sign it is when people can stay home from corporate prayer meetings and can't spend one hour a week praying together with the people of God. I realize there are lawful excuses at times, but this should be our habitual desire to pray with the people of God if we're truly penitent believers.

And five, practical love for God's people. Practical love, verses 44, 45, tell us the new community of believers sold their possessions that people had need so the money could be used to help their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not some kind of mandated communism where we renounce private property, but it's a free and willing use of that property to do good. They dug deep into their personal resources to care for the poor, and that's a sign of Christian love that flows out of the genuinely penitent life of a believer Who wants to lay down his life for his brethren as John puts it. It's a fruit of repentance John the Baptist already said when he called sinners to repent he that had two coats let him impart to him that hath none.

He that hath meat, let him do likewise. True hospitality is especially feeding those who can't return it to you. Number six, and finally, praise to God with gladness. Praise to God with gladness. Look at verses 46, 47, that the repentant believers were living with gladness, Luke says, and praising God.

You see, repentance takes place in sorrow, but it bears fruit in joy. God-centered joy. Broken-hearted sinners love to sing the praises of their Savior, and that's the kind of praise that pleases him. The sacrifices of God, Psalm 51, 17, are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. So let me close by asking the question, is your wife, your husband, your children, your parents, when they look at your life, would they say that you manifest these fruits of repentance?

Would they say you're a penitent believer? And you believingly repent, and you trust in the Lord alone? Do you? Seek the Lord While he may be found Call upon him while he's near If you don't know this change of mind this change of heart this change of course in life Unless you were saved when you're an infant you've never known anything different, and you do love the Lord, and you do hate sin, and you do pursue holiness, but if not, you need to repent. You need to repent in truth for the first time.

Repent that all your sins may be blotted out, and you will be embraced in the wide and warm arms of divine mercy. And dear believer, for you, you and I need much more repenting work. That's why we profit also from warning sermons, like this one has a tad bit of warning in it. Well, that's a good thing, even for our souls, because we're prone to get sloppy spiritually. Calvin says we're prone to be like donkeys, stubborn.

We won't go the way forward. And sometimes we need to be pricked forward. And The call to fresh repentance can do that for us. God not only gives us the grace of faith, but he also gives us the grace of repentance by the exercises of faith. And we need him to do that for us again and again and again, all our life long.

So what does repentance mean to us now? Today, last week, this year, do we know what it means to repent on our faces before God? To find our righteousness in Christ alone, to realize we're saved by blood alone, and then to walk in quiet holiness before God in the complexity of opposites, walking circumspectly, longing to serve him, longing to glorify him. You see, lookers for Christ will never perish. Hebrews 9, 27, 28, it's appointed unto all men once to die and after that the judgment.

But those who look for him, He shall come the second time without sin unto salvation. But those who don't repent shall hear the solemn voice on the great day, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. But it doesn't need to be that way. Go to God for the very grace of repentance you need, and don't rest until you too are one among those who will hear on the day of judgment, come my blessed, ye blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Let's pray. Great God of heaven, we thank thee so much for the gospel, and we thank thee for how thou dost bring us to repentance, not just once in our initial coming to Jesus, but a thousand times. And we thank thee, Lord Jesus, that thou didst wash away fresh sin daily in our sanctification, and in our justification doth wash it away, past, present, and future, by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Please work these things in us and make it keep us as a penitent people who trust in and receive our joy from Thee, the Triune God. Oh Lord, we look to Thee.

Please grant us fresh repentance, fresh joy, fresh reality, fresh communion with thee, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.