Repentance is Service to God

Key Principle #4: Repentance (part 3)

¹³ The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. ¹⁴ But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

Acts 3:13-15

Repentance Is Service to God

        In Peter’s sermon, did you notice that he calls Jesus God’s “Servant” (Acts 3:13)? What an odd title for the Son of God! It was no fluke, because he also uses it in verse 26 and it is found in Acts 4:27, 30. It is not unique to the book of Acts. “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He will declare justice to the Gentiles” (Matt. 12:18).

         We must note that Jesus is not referred to as our Servant, but rather as God’s Servant. Jesus humbled Himself by leaving the glories of heaven and became obedient to even death on the cross. He did it provide our salvation, but also to show us an example. Read John 13:12-17.

¹² So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

      Clearly, Jesus did not have any sins to repent of, but He was God’s Servant in that He fully obeyed His heavenly Father in all ways, including washing the feet of the disciples. Remember, repentance is a change of the mindset, and surely Jesus’ mindset was vastly different from the world and from the disciples. While they were arguing over who was the greatest, Jesus was washing their feet. He was God’s Servant.

      Even before this, when Jesus was making His way to Jerusalem to die on the cross, the disciples were arguing over who was the greatest, and Jesus said, “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:26-27). We should become a servant, just as Jesus did. Jesus called such service a cup to drink and a baptism to be immersed with, and that meant even if it meant serving someone to the point of our own death.

      Some believers say “I don’t have to _____ to be a Christian,” and they fill in a blank with something that they don’t want to do. (Can’t you hear Peter’s thoughts, “I don't have to wash feet, I walked on water with Jesus.”) Those people somehow think that because they were saved by God’s grace through faith as a gift of God, that somehow that salvation makes them God’s gift to this earth! Those people want the blessings but are not willing to drink the cup Jesus drank.

      But if God commands us to do something, shouldn’t we want to, and even if we don’t want to, shouldn’t we obey? Serving God generally calls us to do things our natural selves do not want to do.

      Those people are like the ones whom Paul questioned in asking, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). 

      Those same people (not you or me, I’m talking about those people) also will say, “I can _____ and still be a Christian,” and they fill in that blank by listing some questionable or even some admittedly open sin that they would contest they can continue to practice even though it contradicts God’s commands and teachings in the Bible. Or maybe even if they don't do those things, they will support the lifestyles of others whose lives contradict God’s commands or Biblical teachings. “You are being legalistic,” that person may say if he or she is questioned about their unrepentant lifestyle. Those people want the honor of being along side of Christ but are not willing to be baptized with the immersion of sacrifice and service in which Jesus was baptized.

      Such a person is like one of those whom Paul again questioned in Romans 6:16, asking, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” 

     But we are better than those people, are we not? But who are those people? They were the disciples of Christ, who walked with him, cast out demons, baptized others, yet were unwilling to wash each other's feet on the night Jesus was betrayed. Oh, yes, we are certainly better than those people.

      Do you want a test to see if you are one of those people? Do this: When you read the Bible and it tells you to do something you don’t want to do or when God tells you to not do something you really want to do, do you respond in OBEDIENCE or OBJECTIONS. Do you provide excuses or provide an example for what a true servant of God is.

Repentance is Transformational

Key Principle #4: Repentance (part 2)

11 Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. 12 So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: "Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? … 19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”

Acts 3:11-12, 19

Repentance Is Transformational

        When we are saved, we undergo a transformation. Peter had denied Christ only a few months earlier but now was boldly preaching in the temple. It’s more than just a change in our attitude or outlook on life. It is a total transformation of our mindset.

        When I was in school, there was a paddle that one of my teachers had (this was in the day when corporal punishment was not an optional choice to be made by the parents and even if it were, most parents would have opted for it). The teacher called it an “attitude adjustment” board.

        The teacher told the story about the farmer who also had an attitude adjustment board in his mule-driven cart. The farmer got married and as they were coming home from the church, the mule stopped abruptly in the road, jerking the farmer and his bride suddenly forward. “Now, Mule, that’s one,” the farmer said and the mule looked back and then went forward. A few minutes later, the mule stopped suddenly again and the farmer said, “Now, Mule, that’s two.” The mule looked back and then started clopping down the road. Sure enough the mule jerked to a stop for no reason, and the farmer took the “attitude adjustment” board down off the wagon, went to the mule and “BAM!” The farmer had swung the board as hard as he could at the head of the mule, and said, “Mule, that’s three.”

        The newlywed bride was aghast as the farmer’s sudden temper and his poor treatment of the mule. She started yelling at her groom, saying didn’t he know how cruel he was and how much they needed that mule and how he could have killed the poor animal. The farmer looked at his wife, and said to her quietly, “Honey, I love you, but woman, that’s one!”

        Repentance is not an attitude adjustment. It is not a result of the “board of education applied to the seat of knowledge.” It is a change in your heart and spirit, resulting in a change of your minds, which leads to a change in your actions. It literally means to “think again” and actually comes before, during and after salvation. You can no more have salvation without repentance than a company of soldiers can have an “about face” without changing directions.

        I hesitate to say repentance comes after salvation because then would imply that repentance is somehow optional for the believer. But I also am reluctant to say it comes as a part of salvation, for that would imply that we are saved by something meritorious that we do to earn or deserve our salvation. And I recoil at saying it comes prior to salvation, as we who are dead in our trespasses and sins have no inclination in our fallen state to repent or to be converted. Therefore (have you ever noticed we never say therefore unless we are doing a Bible study…but I digress) Therefore, I say that repentance comes before, during and after our salvation!

        Perhaps the best thing to say is that if you think you are saved, but you do not have a change in your heart and mind, which is repentance, to the point where your actions and lifestyle is changed, which is conversion, then you are no more saved than the lame man was healed if he refused to rise up and walk, though God gave him strength to do so. What would happen to such a man? His healed feet would atrophy to the point that they would do him no good.

        In fact, you may be worse than such man. What if you only thought you were healed, errantly supposing that at any time you could simply rise up and walk, but didn’t because you feared losing your income as an alms collector. You rather like being carried around by others and the familiarity of your regular spot at the Temple. So you continue to be carried by others and never make use of your feet, never testing the strength of your ankles. You would be delusional, thinking, “Someday, when I’m good and ready, I’ll rise up and walk,” but in reality, your legs, ankles, and feet are a lame as that of a rubber duck.

        Such is the case of a professed Christian man or woman who is a Christian in name only, but has no works or only nominal works to show for the praise of others in this life. Such a woman may think she has “repented” when in reality, she will die in her sins. “One of these days, I’ll surprise you, preacher, and I’ll come to church,” such a man may say. Such a woman may even get baptized, but not because she has truly repented of her sins and had them washed away, but because she thought it was what all good people were supposed to do or because her friends, her husband, her boyfriend or her children did so.

      Such a person may be like the person Jesus spoke of in that day of judgment in the greatest sermon ever given, found in Matthew 7. Such unrepentant persons will call out to the Lord Jesus Christ, only to hear Him whom they called Lord, but never obeyed Him as Lord, declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

     Are you being transformed? If not, you likely have not repented and you therefore have not been saved from your sins, your spiritual lameness.

A Parable of Repentance

Key Principle #4: REPENTANCE (part 1 )

“There is no more confused message that you and I could give
to a lost and dying world than to live in sin
and at the same time to tell people about the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
God will not use a compromised life to reach a compromised world.”

Joe Focht, pastor of Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia

²And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried...to ask alms from those who entered the temple; ³who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms... ⁶Then Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." ⁷And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. ⁸So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them--walking, leaping, and praising God.

Acts Chapter 3

     One sadly lacking aspect of the modern church is that it has forgotten its roots. The very foundational sermon of both John the Baptist and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was a message of repentance. The gospel of Mark, perhaps the first of the gospels written, can hardly get out of the gate without laying down the word of "repentance" in the fourth verse of the first chapter.

     Peter's first sermon climaxes in Acts 2:38 with a frank and solemn response to the crowd's cry of "what must we do?"

"Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

     One of my college professors referred the book of Acts as “the Gospel of the Holy Spirit,” compared to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being “the Gospels of Jesus Christ.” In the gospels of Jesus Christ, our Lord used parables to show the truths He was teaching. And in chapter 3 of “the Gospel of the Holy Spirit,” God uses a parable to show the story of repentance, but not a parable in words, rather a parable through a real life situation of raising a lame man.

A Parable of Repentance

The man was born lame;

we are born in sins.

He had to be carried to ask for alms;

we are helpless to save ourselves.

He looked to Peter and John, not for healing, but for alms.

Many, if not all, initially look to Christ not for a cure but for a crutch.

     Peter did not give the lame man what he wanted, he gave him what he needed. A spirit-filled believer will point sinners to salvation and once redeemed to repentance. Not only was the lame man healed, but God gave him strength to walk and knowledge not only how to walk (remember, he was lame from birth), but also how to leap and praise God. God also gives us salvation and gives us the ability to walk, run, and leap for joy in our Christian walk through repentance from sins. Though he could walk, he held on to Peter and John, and though we are delivered from our sins, we need other believers and the church to lean upon.

     When the lame man was healed, he could do many things he could never do since birth. But there was one thing he could never do again. Once healed, the lame man could not go back and beg for alms; no one would give him anything since it was made known he could walk. Likewise, we cannot experience salvation and then expect to go back to our sins and derive the same pleasures. We were saved to work out our salvation, just as the lame man was healed to work out his newly acquired ability to walk. Look at Phil. 2:12:

¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

     The topic of Peter’s sermon is a topic of repentance and conversion, or changing your heart, mind, and action as a part of salvation. The lame man’s life was changed after his healing and our lives will be changed after our salvation. The man could walk, but now had to get a job and work for his income, but not for his healing. We also must repentant of our sins as spirit-filled believers, not for our salvation, but because it was for our good works we were created and saved. Read Eph. 2:10:

¹⁰For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

     The church today should not at all be surprised that repentance is a major part of the New Testament, but is it a part of preaching today in our churches? Is repentance something that you find yourself doing as a regular part of your Christian life? Both John the Baptist and Jesus Christ preached a regular message of “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

     If your newspaper carries the sermon titles in its religion section, I would be utterly shocked to see such a title in any church, but it was a major if not the main topic of the sermons of the New Testament.