What is Repentance?

(from Mike Fitzpatrick’s sermon on Galatians 3:1-5 Part 2 on 3/27/22)

Repentance (means “change of mind ”)

The legalist trusts in his own efforts. He’s depending on his own goodness instead of an all powerful God who is abundant in generosity and willing to act on behalf of those who turn away from, or repent, from trusting in themselves, placing their trust and dependence on Jesus Christ and in Him alone. That’s where repentance comes in with regards to salvation. Not repentance from any known sin, because a person at conversion doesn’t know how to or have the ability to do that. Repentance from sin is part of the process of sanctification. A process that begins after conversion and which lasts all life long. A believer’s repentance from sin is daily. God is drawing us closer to Him relationally and as He does that He begins to change our mind to be more like His mind. That’s what repentance means. It means to change the mind. So God hates sin and He will develop a hatred in your heart for the things that He hates, like sin, when we abide in Him.  Sin hurts God.  It offends Him. Our sin does that. When we willfully sin, because we are indwelt with God’s Spirit, what we’re doing is we’re dragging God into each sinful activity that we engage in, even if it’s only something we’re thinking about. When we go to some place we shouldn’t in our minds we take God’s Spirit right along with us. So sin does damage to our relationship with God (not our position, which is forever fixed). As a believer in Christ, your standing with God is forever favorable and can’t be undone-by you or anything you do. Do you believe that? If so, this should be reflected in the way that we pray. We come in prayer to the God of the universe in the complete security of a favored son approaching their father who delights in giving good gifts to His children in an exceedingly abundant way-beyond what we can even think about to ask. Do your prayers sound like that? Or are they more like an economics transaction that says “I’ll do things for God so He will do things for me.” When we pray like that we are using God, we’re not loving Him. It’s really loving yourself and using God to get what you want. But our sin offends God and hurts our relationship with Him. When we sin, God doesn't leave. He doesn’t go anywhere when we choose sin over Him, but we do (we walk away from Him). It doesn’t affect our standing with God at all, but our sin also harms those around us. So sin is bad. It’s destructive. It harms God. And then us. And then others. These are all things we learn as we’re being sanctified.  God begins to change our minds with regard to the sin in our own lives. This is not something that occurs prior to the moment we are saved. It’s not biblically a condition for salvation. The only condition in the scriptures is faith. Believe or faith is used 150 times in the gospel of John, a gospel written so men might be saved. Repentance or repent as a word is never used in that gospel. In the book of Romans, which unfolds the doctrine of salvation, it never once conditions salvation on repentance or anything other than believing. Repentance, which means “change of mind, ” is not excluded from the terms of salvation. Don’t misunderstand. It is included. But its inclusion is as an essential part of believing. That’s very different than the common misconception that repentance and believing are two separate obligations imposed on an unsaved person. Biblically, when a person believes for salvation, he experiences a change of mind (repentance) that causes him to turn away from what he was trusting and to turn his trust toward Jesus Christ, his new object of trust. So, repentance at conversion-not a change of mind over your sin, that happens in the next step as part of the process of sanctification. Instead, repentance at conversion is a change of mind over regarding your object of trust. Most trust in their own goodness. A person who comes to believe in Jesus Christ as savior has turned away from that, has turned away from whatever it was that they were trusting in before. Being religious, doing religious things, moral reform, change of lifestyle… none of that impresses God. The only thing that impresses God is the righteousness of His Son, which has to be given to us as a gift. And we trust in what He’s done to pay for our sin and turn away from (or repent of) trying to save ourselves. Repenting from sin is good. So is commitment. But those are things that follow faith that saves, they don’t precede it, not according to the Bible. The only condition a person is required to meet for God to provide him or her with the Holy Spirit is the hearing of faith (Galatians 3:5). 

 What is the Gospel? How Can I Be Saved?