Repent and Believe!

Well, hello and welcome to Kingdom Offerings. This is the podcast environment of 100 Fold Ministries. My name is Dave Scherrerrer. I'm the president and founder of 100 Fold Ministries and on these podcasts we like to unpack the offerings of scripture with a special emphasis on the biblical texts that celebrate and advance the gospel of the kingdom. 100 Fold Ministries is all about the gospel of the kingdom. This is the fifth podcast in a series called Help, I Can't Pass This Essay Test. This is where we ask what exactly is the gospel of the kingdom? My fear is a lot of us really can't answer that essay question. And there's a follow-up question. What difference does that make in my life? So we're exploring the words in this series from Mark chapter 1 where Jesus says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Found in Mark 1 verses 14 and 15. Today I want to chat about a couple of small words that have really, really big ideas attached to them. They are the words that represent the second half of Jesus' plan for the restoration of the kingdom of God. He says, repent and believe the gospel. And I feel like we need to pay close attention to Jesus' instructions here. Here's my guess. My guess is that we have all read these words, repent and believe the gospel, a hundred times perhaps. And maybe you remember someone holding a sign on a busy street corner saying the same thing, repent and believe. But still, I think it's possible to read these words over and over again and still miss the big idea. These five words are the key to the abundant life in the kingdom. Repent and believe the gospel. They are the answer to shame, guilt, boredom, anxiety, disappointment, unanswered prayer, pride, purposelessness, greed, all these sins that tend to cover me in darkness all too often. And listen to this, even greater than the freedom from these shackles is the peace and the power that greater than you can imagine that is added to your life when we understand what it is to repent and believe. To understand and yield in obedience to this very good advice is the secret to kingdom living. So let's break this down. And I see three parts, not just two. First, let's get after that. We need to understand repent from what? And then we should probably ask the follow-up question, what exactly does authentic repentance look like? Here's my fear. I fear that as Western culture evangelicals, we have a shallow, sometimes even misplaced understanding of the big idea of repentance. Most often when a believer is asked, hey, what's repentance? The answer comes back something like, well, it's being sorry for your sins. And that's correct in part. Certainly our sins against God will stir a lot of emotions within us, sadness, but also fear and shame and guilt and regret and probably a lot more. But the biblical idea of repentance is less about our emotions and more about where we put our affections, where we place our values and our priorities. A better understanding of repentance is to see it as a change of mind and not a flush of emotions. So the verb translated repent in the New Testament comes from the Greek, the Greek word metanoio. That's best rendered as to change one's mind, not to feel sad for your bad behavior. So let me say that again so that that can sink in. To repent, according to the scriptures, is best rendered as to change one's mind and not to feel sad for your bad behavior. In other words, when a person is exposed to God's truth, if their eyes are open to God's promptings, then they will perceive that they are wrong and God is right. And hence they change their mind from the bitter and away from sin. Repentance is often defined as turning away from sin because this turning is preceded by a change of mind. Imagine actually turning physically away from the various things that hold you hostage and turning instead to the things that bring you life. You see, only a fool would continue driving deliberately in the wrong direction once it's discovered that the road that they're on is not actually the road that will take them to where they hope they're going. I suppose perhaps a very prideful person who will not admit that they're wrong, even when the evidence is overwhelming that they are, might continue driving the wrong way. But either way, you're either a fool or a very prideful fool. So let's try and make this subject of repentance, the idea of choosing to change your mind, a bit simpler. All right, put on your imagination. Imagine standing on a stage of a theater facing an empty auditorium. On your stage left, to your left hand, is the world and all of its passing fancies. With that is the fallen value systems of wealth, the false promises of earned love, the attractiveness of temporary pleasures, even the bankruptcy of moral codes that are based not on right and wrong, but how many happen to believe something is right and wrong at any one moment. Fame, fortune, power, sensuality, wealth, all these are to your left, all sold as very good things. Things that will, so they say, bring you happiness if you have them in enough abundance. Pretty on the outside, but it is all a rotten grave of hopelessness on the inside. That is to your stage left. The human inclination is to look at all this on stage left, all of that materialism and temporary pleasure, and to get lost in it. Theologians call it our sin nature. Turns out all of humanity is inclined to put our hope in such things, and they even shape our lives around the pursuit of them. Imagine that the stage that you are standing on is actually physically inclined to the left, tipped towards the world. Imagine that you have to struggle to stand up straight as the tendency is inclined to the left. As the Bible puts it, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every one of us, sadly, even when we know in our own heart of hearts that there's no true satisfaction in the world, still we return to it. The Bible says we return to it like a dog to its vomit, and I don't really like the optics there for us. So let's not lose hope. If you're still on the stage of that theater right on the other side of the stage, stage right, there is the kingdom of God and its righteousness. There you will find truth and grace, forgiveness, true fulfilling service of an eternal nature, spiritual wealth beyond measure, and the power of royalty bestowed upon you. So that should sound good. This proper understanding of what the kingdom of God offers is not some day later when I get to heaven. These are the qualities of life that I can have right now. I can enjoy supernatural power through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who works mightily through us. We can live above the discouragements and the fear, knowing that our God is the God of all things, knowing that he loves me and he loves those that I love, and he has a plan to redeem all this brokenness and sadness and fear. All I have to do is change my mind. I simply must turn from the world on my left to the kingdom of God on my right. It's amazingly simple, but that doesn't mean that the journey is easy. We'll talk about that more in upcoming podcast offerings. I have to turn from stage left, the worldly side, and start walking towards stage right. The Bible says that I am putting off the old man, the old woman. That's the way of doing business. It means putting aside the pursuit of worldly answers to life issues and instead putting on the new year. And here's an interesting thing. Frankly, you will be putting on the real you. By changing your mind, you will actually becoming more authentically you because you will be being exactly what God created you to be, a kingdom citizen. This repentance and renouncing of the world will help you to become the person that God has set aside, brave, confident, anxiety-free, hopeful, other-centered, and generous. You will increasingly be the authentic image bearer that God intended to have at his side from the very beginning, before he messed it all up at the fall. So all of this reminds me of a famous quote that was penned by the missionary martyr Jim Elliot over 60 years ago, October 28th, 1949. See if this rings a bell. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain which he cannot lose. This is what it is to repent. It is to yield to the rightful status as saved by grace through faith in the saving love of Jesus Christ, believing in his ransoming death on the cross and living into the affirming power of the sufficiency of that sacrifice that was proven by the resurrection. And then we run. We don't walk. We run towards the kingdom, laying aside every encumbrance and the past sins that so easily entangle us on our journey, our journey towards becoming a bondservant of the Most High God. Well, we're not done talking about all this. This is pretty deep theology and we're kind of skipping a stone over the top of this, but this idea of repent and believe is central to answering the questions, what is the gospel of the kingdom? So I look forward to having some more spiritual offerings with you soon, continuing to follow up on this idea of the essay question, so what is exactly the gospel of the kingdom? And I invite you back to Hundredfold Ministries. That's the digit 100, F-O-L-D-M-I-N-I-S-T-R-I-E-S, hundredfoldministries.org, and join us and take a look at the Backyard Conversations blog as well. So I look forward to catching up with you again soon. Take care. you