Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on November 10, 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Joel chapter 2. Joel chapter 2 will be in verses 12 through 17. Today, we are looking at the topic of repentance—what real biblical repentance is and how it relates to faith in the believer’s life.
Joel chapter 2. I’ll begin reading in verse 12.
“Even now, this is the Lord’s declaration: Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster. Who knows, he may turn to relent and leave a blessing behind him, so you can offer a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord your God. Blow the ram’s horn in Zion and announce a sacred fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the people; sanctify the congregation. Assemble the aged; gather the infants, even babies nursing at the breast. Let the groom leave his bedroom and the bride her honeymoon chamber. Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, ‘Have pity on your people, Lord, and do not make your inheritance a disgrace, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, Where is their God?'”
And we ask God for guidance.
Father, as we look at your word again, we pray that you would help us to understand how it is that we are to respond in repentance. When we think about the great day that is coming, we thank you for the evidence throughout Scripture when you have intervened in history to show that you accomplish your will in all things. We can count on that to the very end and into eternity. Give us understanding and help us to apply this to our lives today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
We’re going through the book of Joel. We’ve talked about the locust that invaded. We’ve talked about the army that invaded. Earlier, we talked about a call to prayer and fasting, but today we’re looking at a call to repentance. Throughout all of this, we keep hearing about the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is a time when God intervenes in the world, like when he rescued the Israelites from Egypt or when the walls of Jericho fell down. All of these point to the fact that one day there will be a final great Day of the Lord, and God wants us to be prepared for that. The way to be prepared is through repentance.
So it is that we find here in Joel’s day that they were called to repentance. We’re going to look at it in the Old Testament, and then we’ll see how repentance is the same when we get to the New Testament. Looking again at the definition of the Day of the Lord: The Day of the Lord is used in the Bible to emphasize special interventions of God in human history. It’s his victory over his enemies and his sovereignty over the universe. It is emphasized in past times, but also of the future as well. Because the Lord will intervene in human history to judge the nations. He will discipline Israel, and He will establish his rule in the Messianic kingdom. Death, destruction, punishment, a new creation, promises and salvation go hand in hand.
So Joel brings up this topic through the Lord’s leading: What is it that they are supposed to do? In light of seeing the Day of the Lord and looking forward to the future Day of the Lord, we go back to verse 12.
“Even now, this is the Lord’s declaration: Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God.”
The simplest definition of repentance means to turn and go in a new direction. God is saying, don’t just turn to another person or turn to another source, but it is turning to Him.
So we’re walking our own way. We’re walking according to what the world tells us that we should do. And when we come to repentance, we completely turn. Now we follow God’s path in righteousness in the way that he wants us to go. So in light of the past Days of the Lord and the great coming Day of the Lord, God is calling all of us to repent—repentance to walk toward him and with him.
What does it look like? We go on in the same verse. It happens with fasting; it happens with weeping; and it happens with mourning. Just as the turning is a physical thing—it’s a change in our actions, it’s a change in what our hands do—it’s a change in what our eyes look at. Repentance also involves our emotions because if it’s just a physical turning, it really isn’t changing us on the inside. Therefore, Joel says that in your repentance, there should be fasting, there should be weeping, and there should be mourning.
True repentance is more than just something physically changing in our life; it involves our emotions. But it goes even beyond that because it involves our hearts. Again, we go back to verse 12:
“Even now, this is the Lord’s declaration: Turn to me, not just externally and not just emotionally, but turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God.”
True repentance is evident even deeper than our emotions. It’s evident in our will; it’s evident in our mind and our spirit and our soul. And it can’t just be part; it has to be all of our heart that we’re turning to the Lord.
When you talk to your wife, you don’t tell her, “I love you with 10% of my heart.” Did any of you do that? You should love your wife with what? All of your heart. And when you talk to your kids, you don’t say, “Well, I love you 10%, and you 10%, and you know, I save the other 80% for the next kid that’s coming.” We love them with all our heart. We understand that that’s what God wants us to do. When we turn in repentance, it’s with our entire being. It cannot be partial. It comes from the very deepest part of our very being.
That’s why it says, “Even tear your hearts,” that as deep in you, the true self that is there, God is wanting even that part of you to turn to him in repentance.
What is God’s response to true biblical repentance that involves a physical change, an emotional change, and a change of the will? We go on to read:
“Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster.”
What is God’s response to biblical repentance? His desire is to turn from bringing devastation and disaster, and it’s all based on his character because he is a gracious God. He’s compassionate, he’s slow to anger, he’s abounding in faithful love. The Day of the Lord is a time of judgment upon sin. But God’s ultimate desire is that we are going to turn and return to Him.
Jesus gives us a great picture of this. We hear about the story of the prodigal son in the New Testament. In the story, the son asks for his father to give him his inheritance, and then he leaves. He goes away from his home. He goes far away and he squanders all of the money that he takes. He ends up living with the pigs and even wanting to eat their very food. But he has a time of repentance, and he thinks, “If I would just repent and return to my father.”
He’s going to judge me and persecute me when I come home. No, that’s not what he knew. He said that if I go home, my father is a fair man. He even takes care of his servants. He was expecting his father to respond to him out of love and compassion and being desirous to see him turn back.
Whenever we turn to God in repentance, he’s going to come to us. He’s going to accept us there. That is his desire. Verse 14 says when we do this, he may turn and relent. But not only does God not punish us when we return to him, but he even turns around and gives us a very great blessing.
Jesus could have died on the cross for our sins. Our sins could have been forgiven, and then God could have just let us evaporate and nothing happened after that. He would be deserving of that from us. But God goes beyond that. Jesus’ life, death, burial, and resurrection not only forgives us of our sin, but it gives us this blessing; it gives us this inheritance that we’re going to have throughout eternity. God is desirous that we would turn back to him.
Because more important than bringing judgment upon a sinful world is that God desires to have a right relationship with us—a loving relationship, to be our friend, to be our Father, to be with us throughout eternity.
Who should repent? Joel goes on to say in verse 15, “Blow the ram’s horn, announce a sacred fast, proclaim a solemn assembly.” God is calling everyone to repentance. In this case, he’s speaking to the priests. The priests are responsible to blow the ram’s horn. They are responsible to announce and to proclaim that we are having this time of fasting.
And so it is that we are a kingdom of priests today. It is our responsibility to let others know that God asks for repentance from us. Yes, we’re supposed to share the love of God and his graciousness, but we also need to share that you need to turn to the Lord. You need to repent of the way you live and of your sins.
Who should repent? He goes on to explain in verse 16: “Gather the people; sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the infants, even babies nursing at the breast. Let the groom leave his bedroom and the bride her honeymoon chamber.”
In other words, everyone is called to repentance. The people, the congregation—not only all people, but all ages here, from the aged to the infants. Everyone is required to turn in repentance to God.
Then he talks about the baby that’s starving, nursing at his mother’s breast. We have the groom and the bridegroom that are on their honeymoon, and they’re anxious to leave the wedding. But he’s saying even these things that are super important in our life are not as important as the fact that we need to turn in repentance to the Lord. Nothing important should ever hinder repentance or cause someone to put it off to a later time—even if it’s your honeymoon, even if it’s taking care of a baby that is in need.
Next, I want you to see why should anyone repent?
“Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, ‘Have pity on your people, Lord, and do not make your inheritance a disgrace, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, Where is their God?'”
This repentance is a deep thing. It requires weeping, and it’s us calling on the Lord to have pity on us. It involves our emotions and our innermost being.
Why is it that we cry out for pity from the Lord? Because when there’s true repentance in our life, we’re realizing, “I’m weak, I’m inadequate; I don’t have an ability to save myself. I don’t have a way to cleanse my heart. I don’t have a way to take care of myself throughout eternity. After death, I have to depend on someone else.” And we’re crying out to God, “Have pity on us, Lord, and do this for us.”
Why is it that we think that we can cry out to God? It goes back to his character and his nature, that he is going to respond to us according to his love and his great mercy. But there’s also the idea of upholding God’s character here.
“Why should it be said among the peoples, Where is their God?” In other words, Joel is saying, if you don’t bring about change, if you don’t allow us to have forgiveness of sins and to be rewarded, then everybody’s going to say, “What good is their God to them? Because he is not rescuing them.”
But we know because of God’s character, He will rescue us when we repent. When he does that, it makes his reputation grow. It shows his character to the world. So repentance does something for us, but it also elevates people’s understanding of who God is. That’s why we should repent.
Joel 2:13:
“Tear your hearts, not your clothes. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster. Who knows, he may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, so you can offer a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord your God.”
This is repentance in the Old Testament. But we want to go now to the New Testament and see how it fits in with the same manner there.
We go to 2 Peter 3:9. Why should anyone repent? We ask the same question: “The Lord does not delay his promise as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
God doesn’t want to destroy everyone. He is offering the opportunity that if we repent, we don’t have to perish. Why should anyone repent? It’s because God wants to restore you in a right relationship to Him.
What does repentance look like? Repentance is basically a radical change. The Moody Handbook of Theology explains it this way: “Repentance means more than simply a change of mind. It means a radical moral turn of the whole person from sin to God.” True repentance is proven by actions and fruitful living.
Let’s look at Matthew chapter 3, verse 8, to break down the definition there. True repentance is demonstrated by actions and fruitful living. In other words, you can’t just say, “I’m repentant,” and there’s no change in your life. Jesus said, “Produce fruit consistent with repentance.”
When people have truly repented, there is a demonstrable change in their life. In Acts 26:20, we read, “I preach to those in Damascus first and to those in Jerusalem and all the region of Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God. And when they repent, they should do works worthy of repentance.”
When there’s true repentance in someone’s life, they’re going to live differently. The fruit of their life is going to be changed.
Another thing about biblical repentance is that it cannot be separated from faith. Throughout Scripture, we find faith and repentance going hand in hand. According to Mark chapter 1, after John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God has come near, and this is what you need to do: Repent and believe the good news.”
When we believe that God exists and that he is a rewarder of those who follow him and a judge of those who do not, it will cause us to see our sinfulness and our helplessness so that we physically turn to him, we emotionally turn to him, and we wholeheartedly turn to him.
I’ll put a picture up here. I forgot to bring someone up. Does anybody know what that person is making? There had one person in the first service that knew what they were making. It’s called a Möbius strip.
All right, so if you take a piece of paper, how many sides does it have? It has two. But if you make a Möbius strip, it becomes an object that only has one side. That’s how faith and repentance go together—they are so close that you can’t separate them.
So, I have a piece of paper up here, and on one side, it says “faith.” That’s one thing, right? Right now they’re separated. On the back, it’s “repentance.”
Now, I could say it’s two different sides of the same thing. It’s the front and the back of a coin or a dollar bill. But if you make a Möbius strip, it makes it even more related. You twist the paper and put it back this way. You’re amazed at how talented I am right now.
If you put a pencil on here and draw all the way around like this, you’re never going to get to the end. As you go around it, on one side, you’re going to keep going over faith, and you’re going to keep going over repentance. The two of them have to go hand in hand.
People that say, “I have faith,” but there’s no repentance—that is not saving faith. And it’s not just enough either to repent; you also have to have faith in your life.
We’ll look at three parts of what biblical faith is. What does it require to have biblical faith? The Moody Handbook of Theology gives three really good words that I like: One is knowledge, one is conviction, and the other is trust.
True biblical saving faith has knowledge, it has conviction, and it has trust. Let’s go to Romans chapter 10. Let’s first look at knowledge. In verses 9 and 10, we read, “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.”
The whole verse is talking about there has to be a knowledge, but there has to be this confession of what your conviction is. But what I want to start out with emphasizing is: What is this knowledge that we have to have? We have to know that Jesus is Lord. Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh, and if he was just a man, there would be sin in his life, and there would be no way that he could be a perfect sin sacrifice.
If he was just a man, he would not have been able to withstand the full wrath of God. Only God, being strong enough in himself, could withstand that wrath. So Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the Lord. He claimed to be the Messiah. We have to first know that that’s part of the knowledge of saving faith.
But then we come to John chapter 8, verses 23-24, and Jesus emphasizes this. He says, “I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.” Because he’s claiming to be God. “Therefore, I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not,” and this is what you have to do, “not believe that I am He.”
If people don’t believe that Jesus is God, they can’t have saving faith in their life. “For if you do not believe that I am He, the one that’s from out of this world, you will die in your sins.” Jesus claimed to be God. We have to know that in order to have faith.
But it’s not enough just to know that he’s God. Paul emphasizes that we have to understand what we call the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, we read, “Now, I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand, and by which you are being saved. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received.”
So he’s saying, “I shared the gospel with you in the past, but I’m sharing the gospel again with you today because it is most important.” And that’s why we share the gospel over and over again. And that gospel has these parts to it: First, Christ died for our sins. He was buried and he was raised.
In order to have true faith, you have to have that knowledge. You have to hear it from someone. You have to read it in God’s word. We have to know that Jesus is God. But we also have to know that he came and died on the cross, was buried, and was raised on the third day.
John wrote his whole gospel so that we could have not just fables or memories or legends, but he wrote it down so that we could have a recording of the facts of this knowledge. In John 20, we read, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.”
And this is why he wrote these things down: “But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.” We have the whole Bible written so that we have the adequate knowledge to know what it is that we are supposed to believe.
But faith isn’t just about what we know in our mind. The second word that we see is that it’s about conviction. Conviction involves our emotions. Again, I read from the Moody Handbook of Theology: “This element emphasizes that the person has not only an intellectual awareness of the truths, but that there is an inner conviction of their truthfulness. The Holy Spirit convicts the individual of his sin, personalizing it, and he now sees his sin and need for salvation.”
My example today of this is how I met my wife. I met her on a blind date. I had a teacher in school that then hit Mary. Yes, I’m much older than she is. The teacher said, “You need to go out with this girl.” She gave me all of this intellectual knowledge about her: “She’s wonderful, she’s godly, she’s special, she’s sweet; y’all will get along.” So I had this knowledge of her, but I didn’t have any conviction in my heart until I actually saw her.
We talked on the phone. “Can I take you out?” I was supposed to meet her at a Christmas performance one night; she was up in the choir. I don’t remember if I’d ever seen her, but I’m looking across a choir with 100 people in it, and there’s this beautiful girl, and she’s got this smile that’s so big. All I remember is thinking, “This day, she has to be the most friendly person I’ve ever seen.”
Have you ever seen somebody and they just look friendly? Why? All of a sudden, this knowledge that I had about Mary starts to become this conviction in my heart, “Oh, she is wonderful.” As we dated for three years, her dad said she had to be 21 before we could get married. My conviction grew that she was a wonderful person and that’s who I wanted to marry.
That’s what faith is like. We have this knowledge of Jesus Christ—who he is and what he has done for us—but it goes beyond knowledge to where we become convicted. “Yeah, I really believe that. I’m certain that Jesus is who he says he is, and he has done what he has done.”
Conviction: Acts chapter 2, verses 37 through 38. When they heard this, when they heard the gospel, it says that they were pierced to the heart. I mean, when I saw Mary that first time, I was smitten. I was pierced to the heart. Have any of you ever felt that way toward somebody? Every man should raise their hand.
Okay, all right. You’re in trouble if you didn’t raise your hand. Y’all talk about that afterward. But when they heard the gospel, they felt this conviction; they were pierced to the heart. They said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brother, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized.” This was the right response to faith—to repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
But biblical faith isn’t just about knowledge. It isn’t just about conviction. I go back to my story with my wife. I had the knowledge; my heart was pierced; I had the conviction. But that wasn’t enough. What did I need to do? I needed to marry her. I had to put some action in there. And that’s this third element: it’s trust.
We know about Jesus; we’re pierced to the heart, but then we have to unite with him. That’s what marriage is—a picture of being united with Christ in this way. Going back to the definition: as a result of knowledge about Christ and conviction that these things are true, there also has to be a settled trust, a moving of the will. There has to be a decision; it must be made as an act of your will.
Romans 10:8-9: “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, you know it and you say it, but you have to go beyond that. There has to be a believing in your innermost heart that God raised him from the dead.” When we’re uniting ourselves with him in that way, we will be saved.
What is biblical saving faith? It has to do with knowledge; it has to do with conviction; it has to do with trust. Then we find that now, going through that Möbius strip, it all starts to connect.
Just as repentance relates to a change in the way we live in our actions, so faith is demonstrated by actions and fruitful living in the same way.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, and see, the new has come.” If someone tells you that they have repented or there’s been faith in their life, if there is not a change in the way that they are and the way that they live, it’s probably not biblical faith.
It should be as much difference as if I planted an apple tree and got apples off of it for three years, then the next year I come out and it has peaches on it. It’s obvious there’s been some change here. And so it is that when God works in our life, we don’t just get stitched up; he makes us a new creation. That old part is completely taken away.
James chapter 2 gives us this warning about faith that isn’t saving faith: “For just as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” That doesn’t mean that the works save you; that’s not what it’s saying. What it’s saying is that there is going to be evidence of works in your life of living a different way.
If there truly has been biblical saving faith—knowledge, conviction, trust—we find all of these in Romans chapter 10, verses 13 through 17, where we read, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?”
But not all obeyed the gospel. There were some that heard, but they didn’t obey. “For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.
So we have to kind of go backwards here. People first off hear this message; that’s the knowledge that they have. Then it says that they believe; they have this conviction: “Yes, I believe that this is true.” But even if they hear it and they believe it, they still have to place their complete commitment upon Jesus Christ.
That’s by calling to him in faith and saying, “Lord, I can’t do anything else for myself.” What you have done for me, I accept today. To hear is to receive the knowledge. To believe is to be convicted. To call on him is to place your complete reliance on Jesus Christ and nothing else—complete reliance on Jesus alone, and not even Jesus plus anything else.
Paul says that there were those who heard it, but just because they heard it, it didn’t necessarily result in saving faith unless there was also conviction and trust there.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4: We talked about where Paul shared what the gospel is—that Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised. But again we see the knowledge and the conviction and the trust. Paul preached to them; that’s the knowledge that they received.
Then they received it; there was the conviction: “Yes, we accept this; it’s true.” But then Paul says, “Then they took their stand.” They trusted and committed themselves fully to the gospel. When those three elements were there, it tells us that they were saved.
We end with the question: Today, are you prepared for the great Day of the Lord? That’s what Joel is preparing us for. Each of these great Days of the Lord in the past were supposed to bring about repentance and faith in people’s lives because God wants to rescue us from the coming day.
Zephaniah tells us what that day will be like. It’ll be like any other Day of the Lord. He says that the great Day of the Lord is near, near, and rapidly approaching.
“Listen, the day of the Lord—the warrior’s cry is bitter. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and total darkness, a day of ram’s horn and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the high corner towers. I will bring distress on mankind, and they will walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Their silver and their gold will be unable to rescue them on the day of the Lord’s wrath, and the whole earth will be consumed by the fire of his jealousy. For he will make a complete, yes, a horrifying end of all the inhabitants of the earth.”
God is coming to judge the world one day. And for some, this is a scary thing if you’re not prepared. But it’s not meant to scare us—it’s meant to be a warning so that we will turn to the Lord in repentance and faith.
Again, repentance is a radical moral turn of the whole person from sin to God, and it has to be combined with faith, which is knowledge about who Jesus is and what he has done, combined with a conviction that, “Yes, I believe this is real,” and then walking and standing in Jesus Christ alone.
If you’re not certain that you’re going to be with the Lord in eternity someday, you need to express this to God. I’ve just written what would be something that someone would say to the Lord to express true repentance and faith. The words don’t have to be exactly this, but this is something like what you would say to the Lord:
“God, I am a sinner in need of the forgiveness and salvation that only you can provide. Both my mind and heart are convinced that Jesus is your son, God in the flesh, that he died to pay the penalty for my sin and that he rose from death, that I might also rise to new life and be a new creation. Today, I am radically turning my entire person from a life of sin to live for you. Amen.”
So be it.
Lord, if this is the desire of your heart, this is what you need to express to the Lord that you might know you are prepared for the Day of the Lord when he returns.
And just as we were told, don’t put it off. Don’t put it off for a honeymoon; don’t put it off to get married; don’t put it off for a baby that’s in need. God is calling us to repentance and faith today because the great Day of the Lord can begin at any time. We say that it’s imminent, so we need to be prepared.
Kelly Jo is going to be coming up to lead us in a song today, and I’m going to ask that you remain seated, search your heart, and ask God: Have you done this? If you have not, today is the day of salvation to ask God to bring you salvation.
If you have prayed this prayer today, I’d love for you to talk to me or to Hunter or somebody else with a name tag because we want to celebrate with you and give you some tools to help you to grow in your faith. If you want to sing, that’s great. If you just want to spend time in prayer, maybe you know someone here today that you don’t think that they’re a believer. Maybe you want to spend this time to pray for them that God will convict their hearts.
Worship team, will you come and lead us?