Alba 10-15-2023
THIS IS WHAT REPENTANCE LOOKS LIKE
I Thessalonians 1:9-10
In Acts chapter two, the apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost was preaching about Jesus, and he concluded his sermon with these words:
36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
38 Then Peter said to them, “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. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”
Repent!... Peter told them. In other words if you want to be made right with God, change your ways!
What if a person came saying that he wanted to become a Christian, and a preacher talked to him about it and said, "Well, my friend, what is the trouble?"
He doesn't want to tell. He is greatly agitated. Finally he says, "The fact is, I have overdrawn my account". A polite way of saying he has been stealing. He is asked, "Did you take your employer's money?" And he answers, "Yes." "How much?" "I don't know. I have never kept account of it." "Well, do you have an idea you may have stolen $1,500 last year?" "I am afraid it is that much."
Now what if the preacher would say: "Now, look here, sir, I don't believe in sudden work. So don't steal more that a thousand dollars this next year, and the next year not more that five hundred. And in the course of the next few years you will get so that you won't steal any. If your employer catches you, tell him you are being converted; and you will get so that you won't steal any by and by."
No! Peter said, “Repent!” And the Bible says, "Let him that stole, steal no longer" (Ephesians 4:28). Repentance is an about face, a change in direction, a turning away from doing wrong.
That's the action the people in the church in Thessalonica took. I Thessalonians 1:9-10 says that the apostle Paul had heard good things about them from others. There he says:
9 For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
They turned to God. That's the key, isn't it! Turn to God! That is what repentance looks like. Most of us probably think that we have done a pretty good job of putting the Lord first in our lives. And I hope that is true. Still, there are three things that we do need to remember:
1. That all people are sinners. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) That doesn't leave any of us out.
2. That sin brings a terrible penalty. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) God will be true to His Word.
3. There is an inescapable judgment ahead for every person. “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) God is the just judge of all the earth.
Our only hope is to do what the Thessalonians did. We all must turn to God. That is what repentance looks like. It is a full turn. It is a decision followed by action.
A mother calling to her son shouted, “Johnny, tell your sister to get in the house out of the rain.” “I can't mom,” came the reply. “And just why can't you?” demanded his mother. “Because we are playing Noah's Ark mom, and she's one of the sinners.”
We like to make the distinction between the sinners on the outside of the ark and the saints on the inside, and it is a legitimate distinction.
But in so doing, we tend to cover up the reality that the saints inside are still sinners. Sinners saved by grace, but sinners nevertheless. And that is who we are. We are sinners, yes; but we also need to be saved by the grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our risen Lord and Savior.
Unless you turn to Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life and repent of your sins, you have not turned to meet God where He offers full salvation. Faith in Christ is an all or nothing proposition.
There’s a telling illustration of commitment in the story of Moses and the children of Israel that we have been looking at in our Wednesday night Bible study. Several times Moses asked Pharaoh to let the people go and serve Jehovah in the desert. But Pharaoh was cunning and told Moses, "Yes, you can go, but leave your flocks and herds behind", knowing that without their animals they would have to return to slavery.
But Moses was firm, and insisted that the herds were needed for the sacrifice. He says in Exodus 10:26 "Not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God". I rather like the phrase "Not a hoof shall be left behind". It was all or nothing then and it's all or nothing now!
No matter who we are, or what our background, or what is our best effort to do well, not one of us has been good enough to get to heaven on our own merit. Without Jesus, we don't stand a chance.
The Thessalonians took a dramatic 180-degree turn. Their faith literally changed directions. Verse nine says that they, “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,”
These people repented, turning to God, they turned away from their previous worship of idols. Idols are dead and false. God is living and true. Isaiah tells us the foolishness of worshiping something made by the hands of men. He tells how a person may use a piece of wood in Isaiah 44:16-17.
He makes fun of the idol maker saying, “He burns half of it in the fire; With this half he eats meat; He roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, His carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, Prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
But, in the next chapter the Lord calls out, “Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:22)
The Thessalonians did what we must do. They put their trust in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for their salvation. They did not rely on the false gods that cannot save. They did not rely on the words or wisdom of world around them.
They turned their backs on their own sinfulness and false worship, and took hold of the promise of a face-to-face relationship with the living God.
The secret of getting victory over idolatry is to turn to God from idols, not turn from idols to God. Many try turning from idols so they can be closer to the Lord. However, if we will turn to God then we will leave the idols behind.
Holiness is not the way to Christ. Christ is the way to holiness. When we yield our lives to Jesus Christ we will have His help to live a holy life.
A lot of people are trying to work it out by becoming more and more holy through their own efforts, work and diligence. When we truly turn to God, then we will leave our idols behind. We won’t leave our idols behind until we turn to God.
The best definition of idolatry is found in Romans chapter one. Turn to Romans one, and let’s look at verses 22-25.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Idols come in many different shapes and sizes. An idol doesn’t have to be a little statue in your living room or a pyramid in your back yard. It doesn’t have to be a hand-carved, graven image imported from a South American jungle, but actually made in Taiwan.
Let’s stop to think as to what is an idol. An idol is really a God-substitute, something which has taken the place of the true and living God. Idolatry can be anything that diverts our attention or devotion away from God and puts that attention on us, or another person, or any other thing.
Idolatry is the exchange of the truth of God, the truth of His Word, for the worship of something, anything else. This would include any activity that is put above or before God.
Anything that demands an allegiance that is due to God alone is a form of idolatry. An idol can be something that in itself may be good, but if it displaces the primacy of God in our life, it is an idol.
So anything we freely choose that replaces our dedication to God can become an idol. Ephesians 5:5 (NIV) says to be greedy is idolatry. It says, "For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
We have to ask ourselves, is there anything that we treasure so much as to put its value above our relationship with God? If so, we have an idol in our life. There may be things that just need to be thrown into the trash or put in the fire. Godly repentance leads to a change in behavior.
So, don’t weep over your sins if you don’t intend to change! God won’t hear the first teardrop fall! However, if you’re willing to turn away from your sins, God has His loving arms outstretched as you turn to Him.
God has so much to give when we repent and turn to Him! And when we do so, then we can also, as it says in verse ten, “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
Does it seem odd that the Christians in Thessalonica were both “serving” the living God which is obviously something active, but also “waiting” for the Lord's return. This teaches us that the two go together.
These early believers expected Jesus to return at any time. They didn’t sell their goods and quit their jobs and stand on a mountain staring at the sky. They continued to live their lives, but they lived with a sense of excited expectation of our Savior's soon return.
The model Christian is called to work while waiting; to be ready for our Lord’s coming. The need is for watchfulness, because scripture says He will come unexpectedly like a thief in the night.
David Dykes said that when he was in seminary, he spoke at a Christian orphanage in London, Kentucky. This school taught that Jesus was going to come in the clouds and take us home to be with Him. These kids didn’t have much worldly hope, but they sure had a heavenly hope.
The director of the orphanage showed him the smudges on the windows of the orphanage. He said they have a hard time keeping the windows clean because the children loved to put their faces to the windows and look at the sky.
David says he’ll never forget that, and asks, “Do you keep the windows of your life smudged up with your hopeful looking for the return of Jesus?”
You wait for someone you expect. You wait for someone you anticipate seeing. If you and I are going to be ready when Jesus comes again, we need to turn to God, demolish any idols that are in our hearts or homes and leave idolatry behind.
You and I need to be sure of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Here's the good news: that God’s Son, whose coming from heaven the true believer eagerly awaits, rescues us from wrath. That is the purpose of the cross! That is the end goal of God’s eternal purpose for those who are believers, He delivers us, he rescues us, from wrath, and will bring us into His kingdom.
In John 14:3 Jesus promised before He would soon ascend to Heaven, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
When we turn to serve a living and true God, we will one day be saying with the apostle Paul as he did in I Timothy 4:8 “Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” Keep looking up!
So what does repentance look like? It is when you have turned to God from whatever it was that was holding you back, and then you serve the true and living God, waiting for the return of Jesus Christ.
That's what repentance looks like.
CLOSE:
Here's a quote from Ray Stedman, who was a well-known minister in California. He said, “I heard of a Chinese man who visited here and was asked upon his return to China whether Americans worshiped idols.
‘Yes, they do,’ he reported. ‘They have three of them. In the winter they worship a fat man in a red suit. In the spring they worship a rabbit. And in the fall they sacrifice a turkey!’”
Well, whatever it is that keeps us from full surrender to Jesus as Lord, we need to repent of it. The Bible tells us that we are to come to the Lord in faith, repenting of our sins, confessing our belief in Him and be baptized into Him.
But repentance isn’t just a one-time action. Nor is it just for the sinners outside the church. The command to repent in the Bible is often spoken to churches and believers.
As God reveals more and more truth to us, we must continue to change our minds and bring our beliefs and actions in line with His Word.
Then others will be able to see that this is what repentance looks like.
