Change of Mind Toward Righteousness

Driving home: It must never be conceived as one of the peripheral issues of the gospel, but it lies at the very core of the claims of God in the gospel as that gospel is found in Holy Scripture.

Repentance is likened to a tree: its soil is God's grace, roots are conviction of sin and laying hold of Christ, the trunk is a deep change of mind, and branches are changes of mind regarding God, sin, self, and righteousness.

The soil in which true repentance is found is the grace of God. The nature of true repentance is like that tree that we keep setting before you. Its soil is the grace of God, its roots conviction of sin, and the laying hold of Christ crucified, the main trunk of it being that deep change of mind, that radical revolutionary change in what I think, how I feel, what I choose. And then it branches out into these four main areas, a change of mind, respecting God, respecting sin, and then respecting myself.

0:55 - 1:33 Read in full sermon

Driving home: All men by nature evidence two delusions as far as this matter of having a right standing with God. Either they are one, absolutely indifferent to it or two, absolutely deceived as to how to have it.

Martin imagines approaching someone in Times Square with the good news of a right standing with God, only to be met with utter indifference, illustrating man's natural apathy toward spiritual matters.

Suppose I were to go down to Times Square tonight after the service was over and even with this kind of weather you'll see people roaming up and down and I were to get real excited and come up to the first guy I could find and put my hand on his shoulder and say Mr. I've got the most wonderful news in all the world. Right here tonight I'm going to tell you the best thing you have ever, ever heard. He looks at me and says You some kind of nut?

10:57 - 11:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin describes man's natural state as either utterly indifferent to having God's smile or deceived about how to obtain it, often prioritizing peer approval over God's.

God's offer of salvation is compared to a salesman trying to sell outdated clothes on the street, which people ignore, highlighting man's disregard for God's gracious provision.

Look what I've wrought to give you a right standing with me. A man looks at that as though God were trying to sell us old, outdated clothes and make a little money in the process. And we walk right by. If somebody stood on Bloomfield Avenue trying to sell to you ladies skirts that were eight inches off the ankle like they were in 1958 or so, you wouldn't pay any attention to them.

15:26 - 15:51 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The parable of the prodigal son serves as a beautiful analogy for God's immediate and unconditional acceptance of the repentant sinner, clothing him in the 'best robe' without…

The Father putting the best robe on the prodigal son, despite his tattered appearance, illustrates God's immediate acceptance and clothing of the repentant sinner in Christ's righteousness without prior self-cleansing.

And the acknowledgement or the recognition that the Father now, looking to His own dear Son, into that perfect righteousness wrought in Him, can look upon me as in Him and can smile. I think we see a beautiful analogy of it in the prodigal. I wouldn't say that this was one of the things our Lord intended to teach in this parable, but it is a beautiful analogy or illustration of the principle. We turn to Luke 15 for just a moment and then I want to show a statement of it in the life of the Apostle Paul himself.

36:44 - 37:21 Read in full sermon