Repent & Believe! Series

About 10 years ago, there was a 67-year-old Belgian woman named Sabine Moreau. She had left home to travel about 1 ½ hours to Brussels (the capital city of Belgium). TWO DAYS LATER, after having crossed five international borders, she found herself in Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia, nearly 900 miles from her home.

It was probably at that point that she suddenly realized that she might not be in Belgium any more. She admitted that she’d seen “all kinds of traffic signs. First in French, then in German, and so on “But I didn't ask myself any questions. I was just distracted…” But the real problem was that her GPS had malfunctioned, and she just took it for granted that it was guiding her to her destination. She later said: "When I passed Zagreb (the capital city of Croatia) I told myself I should turn around." (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262149/Belgian-woman-67-picking-friend-railway-station-ends-Zagreb-900-miles-away-satnav-disaster.html)

She’d gone the wrong way - was miles away from home - and she finally told herself she needed to TURN AROUND. In our text today we see a word that means “turn around”… the word “REPENT”.

Jesus said: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; REPENT (turn around) and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15) You see, many of the Jews had gone the wrong way in their lives - they’d traveled MILES away from God - and they needed to turn around… and go back to Him. THEY NEEDED TO REPENT!

* This idea of repentance is a repeated theme throughout the Bible. The Old Testament prophets told Israel repent/turn away from their sins - saying “Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. Ezekiel 14:6

* When John the Baptist was baptizing people at the Jordan River, he preached about “The baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Luke 3:3

* At one point, Jesus sent out His 12 disciples and THEY preached that “People should repent.” Mark 6:12

* On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38

* And the Apostle Paul preached “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30

It shows up again, and again, and again throughout the Bible. So obviously… repentance is important to God - which raises the question: Why do we have to repent? Why is it so important? Well, the main reason is - we tend to mess things up in our lives. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” We’ve all said or thought or done things in our lives that make us ashamed. And if we don’t repent of those things we can end up traveling a long way away from God.

And yes, even Christians need to repent. In I John 1:9 John tells Christians: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confessing our sins means that we admit we’ve messed up and we intend turn away from those sins and return to God.

ILLUS: One of my favorite Old Testament stories is about Adam and Eve after they’d sinned. God comes down to the Garden and asks a couple of questions: First, God called out to Adam and asks “Where are you?” And Adam replied “I was afraid, because I was naked, & I hid myself." And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

Now – quiz time: When God asked Adam “Where are you?” … didn’t God KNOW where Adam was? Of course God knew! God knows everything! Then why ask the question? Because God was giving Adam a chance to “fess up”… to REPENT of what he’d done. Then God asked “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" But didn’t God know Adam had eaten of that fruit? Of course God knew! God knows everything! So, why ask the question? God was giving Adam another chance to repent.

So twice, God gave Adam a chance to confess/repent but Adam figured, what God didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He figured that if he just covered his SIN/nakedness with leaves, and hid in the bushes… Well, God wouldn’t notice! Adam decided that - all he had to do was ignore the sin and the problem would go away. But it doesn’t work that way.

Sin makes us feel guilty, and even makes us want to wash away our guilt.