The Nature of Repentance, Part 4

Driving home: Repentance is the tear in the bright eye of faith, and faith is the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance.

Repentance is 'the tear in the bright eye of faith,' and faith is 'the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance,' illustrating their inseparability and mutual necessity for a saving look to Christ.

And faith is the act of a penitent, so that whoever believes, repents, and whoever repents, believes. And I've tried to capture it under the imagery of two eyes. Repentance is the tear in the bright eye of faith, and faith is the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance. And no one has a saving look to Christ without the bright eye and the wet eye.

7:42 - 8:10 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He reviews previous messages, defining repentance unto life from the Shorter Catechism, identifying God's grace as the 'soil,' a true sense of sin and apprehension of God's mercy…

A tree serves as a visual aid, with God's grace as the soil, conviction of sin and apprehension of mercy as taproots, and turning from sin unto God as the trunk, organizing the elements of repentance.

The shorter captioning. Catechism will be our organizing framework, and a tree will be our visual aid. The shorter catechism, in answer to the question, what is repentance unto life, gives this answer. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sins, and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.

8:41 - 9:25 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin expounds Isaiah 55:6-7, calling the wicked to forsake their 'way' (self-centered life) and 'thoughts' (source of wickedness), applying this call to young people and adults…

God is depicted as a street vendor in Isaiah 55, offering gospel commodities freely, purchased by the suffering servant, to illustrate the indiscriminate offer of grace.

And now in chapter 55, God takes the posture of a street vendor standing in the marketplace and says, saying, Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. God stands with all these gospel commodities.

23:59 - 24:21 Read in full sermon

The point: You and I must in our repentance repent of our particular sins, particularly.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his family being convinced of his true repentance when he stopped being lazy and was the first to own sin in household tensions, illustrating the need for particular repentance.

You know when my family was convinced I had come to true repentance? When I stopped being lazy.

40:44 - 40:50 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He provides biblical examples, first the Ninevites (Jonah 3:5-10) who turned from their evil way and violence, and then the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:18) who repudiated his life in…

The Prodigal Son's decision to return to his father is presented as an example of sin-repudiating repentance, as he left behind his riotous living and harlots, repudiating his life in the far country.

The repentance was a sin repudiating repentance. And then secondly, turning to the New Testament, there is the marvelous example in our Lord's parable of the prodigal who left the household, his father's side, his father's face, his father's house rules, goes out into the far country and wastes the inheritance with riotous living and harlots. But when he's come to himself, we saw last week six times, I will arise and go to my father and I will say to my father, our Lord indicates repentance is a God-focused grace. It was the father to whom he was returning. But in so doing, he repudiated certa...

49:27 - 50:34 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Further examples include the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:9) who turned from idols to God, and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:6-8) who demonstrated repentance by restoring fourfold and…

Zacchaeus's commitment to restore fourfold and give half his goods to the poor is highlighted as a radical act of sin-repudiating repentance, showing his repudiation of avarice and materialism.

It never dawned on me until I was preparing for today. He took a real risk of probably liquidating everything. This guy had been a chief among the tax collectors and for years had been taking advantage of people, giving away half his goods to the poor and then saying, I'm restoring fourfold to everybody else. He may have ended up on the bread line for all I know.

54:13 - 54:37 Read in full sermon