Changing Your Mind Series

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 nevertheless sinners. Noah didn't take

much time before he demonstrated that after the Ark landed.

Failure to be aware of this reality led the Pharisees of Christ's day, and self-righteous saints all

through history, to feel that the message of repentance does not apply to them. Repentance is only

relevant to those sinners outside the ark. It is a message you can preach at the mission, but it has no

place in the sanctuary of the saints. Billy Graham said, "I have been shocked to find that the theme

proclaimed so emphatically by the prophets and apostles is scarcely mentioned by contemporary

preachers." I must confess that it is not a topic I would be preaching on this morning if I was not

going through the book of Mark systematically.

One of the major values of expounding scripture systematically is that it makes you look at

subjects that you would otherwise ignore, and in so doing you make many new discoveries. I have

always thought of repentance as a rather negative subject, and not one that Christians would have

any reason to get excited about. That is due to the fact that I have never heard the subject truly

expounded, and I suspect that is true for most of us.

We are all victims of our culture where the only time we ever hear the word repent is in a context

of scolding lost sinners. We have such a limited and distorted view of the word and its meaning that

we have lost its Biblical content, and in so doing have lost a basic element in the good news of the

Gospel. My task will be to try to restore to this word its Biblical content so that we can appreciate it

as a positive experience for sinners inside the ark. In other words, see that repentance is not just for

the lost anymore.

The lost only have to repent once to end their lostness, but the saved have to repent innumerable

times. Repentance rightly understood is more relevant for the Christian than for the non-Christian. To achieve our goal of understanding we will look at three aspects of repentance: The message of

repentance, the motive of repentance, and the meaning of repentance. Let's begin first with-

I. THE MESSAGE OF REPENTANCE.

Mark tells us that the very first message that Jesus preached was that the kingdom of God was

near and, therefore, people are to repent and believe the good news. This was the same message that

John the Baptist had been preaching. But John was now in prison. His voice was silenced, and so

Jesus steps into the gap and goes on preaching the same message of repentance. So we see that the

New Testament begins with this primary message-repent.

As we move into the ministry of Jesus, we come to a point where He sends out His 12 chosen

disciples to preach, and Mark 6:12 tells us that their message was to be that people should repent.

Then we go to the very end of His ministry, and we listen to the last message Jesus gave His

disciples before ascending to heaven. In Luke 24:46-47 we read, "He told them, this is what is

written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and

forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations...."

We see clearly that repentance is not merely an introductory message that Jesus used to get

started. It was the message He had all through His ministry, and the message He gave to His church

to take into all the world. Repentance is not a side road, but rather, it is the main highway, and the

very essence of the Gospel.

When we get into the book of Acts we see that, sure enough, this was the message the Apostles

took to both the Jews and the Gentiles. New Testament preaching was repentance preaching. Peter

in his most successful sermon ever at Pentecost concluded in Acts 2:38, "Repent and be baptized,

everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven." Repentance and

forgiveness of sins go hand in hand. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, but