True Repentance – Acts 11:1-18

In this passage of scripture, Paul praises God for His saving grace.

All of the people of this world begin life spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, v.1.

For some length of time our lives were spent in a fashion pleasing to Satan, the Prince of the Air, v.2.

We filled ourselves with the desires of flesh rather than the Spirit, because we were by nature the children of wrath.

But out of His great love wherewith He loved us, God has brought millions of sinners to Himself.

Even when we were dead in our sins, God quickened us through Christ, v.3.

We were saved out of those sins; we were made spiritually alive by God’s grace, v.5.

We have been raised up to sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, v.6

Of course, it was entirely by God’s grace THROUGH FAITH that we have been saved.

And that faith itself was the gift of God, v.8.

And, praise the Lord, this gift of grace was NOT confined to the children of Abraham and Judah.

We who were born Gentiles in the flesh have been made nigh by the blood of Christ, v. 13.

We who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise . . .

We who were born without any hope, living without God in the world, have been saved by grace.

Now Christ is our peace with God, having abolished in His flesh and death the condemnation that was against us through God’s law.

I can honestly tell you that I love Ephesians 2.

The church, to which this letter was written, was made up primarily of non-Jewish people – Gentiles.

In other words, they were people like most of us.

God was under no obligation to send His gospel in our direction,

But because He so loved the WHOLE world, He chose to evangelize and even to save some of us.

Paul, the Jew, was leading some of his Gentile friends in praising God for His saving grace.

The scripture we’ve been studying for the past couple of weeks, Acts 10, is very important to the Gentiles.

It describes how one of the chief Apostles, Peter, was convinced that God wanted the Jews to evangelize non-Jews.

The Lord used a Roman soldier to show to Peter His will.

And he in turn took with him six members of the Jewish church in Joppa to be witnesses to whatever was going to happen in Caesarea.

In the scripture that we read earlier today from Acts 11, Peter spoke to the church in Jerusalem and explained what had happened in the house of Cornelius.

It appears from Acts 11:12 that Peter brought the six witnesses with him to the capital.

Together, these seven Jewish saints testified that God had poured out His grace upon the Gentiles.

And “when [the church in Jerusalem] heard these things, [at first] they held their peace, [but eventually] glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

Whoever it was who was speaking on behalf of the church, used a strange combination of words in v.18.

I have read this verse several times over the last week, and even in English I have to read it slowly because the words don’t fit well together.

And those who are expert in Greek, tell me that it is just as confusing in that language as well.

Maybe he was just excited and his tongue got ahead of his brain, as mine does so very, very often.

But it’s not the grammar with which I am intrigued this morning; it’s the vocabulary.

“When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

This spokesman could have said, “Now we know that God is willing to save the Gentiles.”

He could have said that God had granted faith to the Gentiles, or salvation, or deliverance.

Out of the many words that he could have used to say what he said, the Holy Spirit led him to refer to “REPENTANCE.”

The specific choice of this word highlights the importance of repentance.

James, or whomever it was, used “repentance” to represent all that is contained in salvation from sin.

I’d like you to spend half an hour this morning thinking about the importance of true repentance.

Amidst all the false and fraudulent repentance of our day . . .

And amidst all the unintentional confusion about repentance, it is worth our time to study it once again.

But first, let’s clear the rubble away by thinking about FALSE REPENTANCE.

This is extremely important, because the Bible says that people without repentance will never be accepted by the Lord.

The reason for this will become apparent in just a minute.

But as Paul told the Greeks in Athens, God “commandeth all men every where to repent.”

As Peter told the Jews on the day of Pentecost when they asked what they needed to do to be saved,

And as he repeated to them in chapter 3 “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.”

And even as the Lord Jesus had told them earlier, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

When John the Baptist said that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, he also told people to repent.

It was apparent that repentance was a necessary part of entrance into that Kingdom.

And Christ Jesus preached exactly the same message.

For months now, MasterCard has been airing a cute series of advertisements.

They depict a variety of things that many people would like to see or do,

And then say, you can’t have this thing unless you use your MasterCard,

Because this place doesn’t accept Visa or American Express.

Well, in a similar way, no one is going to enter Heaven without repentance and one piece of personal identification – faith.

So sinners, like us, better understand exactly what it is to repent.

Repentance is not the same thing as being FRIGHTENED about Hell.

There are a great many things about God that we will never know, because we are incapable of understanding the infinite.

But our mental inabilities are not confined to just deity.

There are many things about which we don’t have enough information so that we can understand them.

And I think that there are other things which are too much for us to handle even if we did know them

For example, if we knew all about Heaven, we might not want to remain another moment on earth.

AND I think that if we knew all that there was to know about Hell, our hearts would explode out of fear.

But fear of Hell is not repentance.

Fear is an emotion, and repentance is not really an emotion.

By definition repentance is a change of mind, or more particularly, a change of heart about sin and God.

It is a SPIRITUAL exercise, not an emotional exercise.

When Paul had the opportunity to preach the gospel to the Roman Governor of Israel,

Felix literally trembled out of fear, but he did not repent of his sin before the Lord.

Fear, fear of judgment, fear of Hell is not the same thing as repentance.

Nor is repentance a YEARNING for Heaven.

Back when I was growing up, so many of the kids my age wanted to be astronauts.

They wanted to fly to the moon and beyond; they wanted to see new things.

That is not unlike the desire of many people to go to Heaven.

But not a single classmate or friend of mine ever went to the moon or has flown in the Space Shuttle.

It wasn’t that they were forbidden by law or by their parents.

But to be an astronaut requires exceptional skills in math and some of the sciences.

To be an astronaut requires a level of physical fitness that many people don’t attain.

To be an astronaut demands a discipline and dedication that most of my friends didn’t possess.

But the lack of these things didn’t take away the desire.

And yearning for Heaven is not the same thing as repentance and faith.

A desire for Heaven isn’t the same thing as meeting the entrance requirements.

The world might not agree, but a lot of people think that HUMILITY is a good character trait.

I think that humility is vitally connected to repentance,

But humility is not necessarily the same thing as having a change of mind and heart about sin.

Some of the most proud people that I have ever met, know how to appear humble.

But their humility is not the same as repentance.

Confession of sin is another evidence of repentance, but confession is not the same thing as repentance.

The Bible has many examples of people who were caught with their hand in the cookie jar, weeping and moaning,

But their confession & grief wasn’t so much about their sin as much as it is about being caught in sin.

Prisons are filled with remorseful people, who upon their release go right back to their old sinful ways.

But then on the other hand, a reformed life, and lots of good deeds isn’t necessarily repentance either.

To go for years without a drink doesn’t mean that a man isn’t an alcoholic.

For someone not to take a knife and stab a man to death, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t hate him and wish that he was dead.

There are a great many people who confuse what appears to be the fruit of repentance with repentance itself.

These things are related but they aren’t synonymous with repentance.

What is it that God granted the Gentiles repentance unto life?

First, we see that whatever it was, it was connected to something called “life.”

But it is not the life which our parents gave us and the life which our pets and petunias enjoy.

Just as many Palestinians today might not be happy that Israelis have life,

The Jews in the Book of Acts might not have been happy that the Roman had life.

Many of them may have wished that the Romans were all dead.

When these people praised God for granting the Gentiles life, they were referring to something beyond the physical life that they had.

They were talking about spiritual life and eternal life.

They were talking about the life to which Paul referred in Ephesians 2:

The Gentiles “hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

While they were dead in sins, hath God made them alive together with Christ, (by grace He has saved some of them;)

And He hath raised them up together, and made them to sit with us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward both of us through Christ Jesus.

In the past they were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,

And strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

But now in Christ Jesus those who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

This repentance is a change of mind about sin, about righteousness and about judgment.

Repentance is a change of mind before the all-knowing God; He will not be deceived.

Repentance is an agreement with God and involves hatred against sin, because God hates it.

Repentance is a turning to God and a returning to God.

It is a fleeing from sin; a forsaking of idolatry and a union with the Lord.

Picture two people like Philip and Sarah in the midst of a wedding ceremony.

There is beauty and pageantry; there is music and flowers; there is great joy and even a few tears.

And there are also vows and promises which are supposed to express their hearts.

I think that the vows should include a pledge to forsake all others.

Never will that woman date another man.

Never will that man buy chocolates and flowers in order to draw the affection of another woman.

And both parties in that wedding should also pledge themselves to each other.

In sickness and in health; in good times and bad times; for better or for worse.

Those two aspects of a wedding vow, the negative and the positive, should be similar to what transpires in the heart of a sinner at the time of his salvation.

Repentance is the part of the ceremony where we promise to forsake all others.

All sin, all idolatry, all our false doctrine and heretical teaching.

As sinners come to Christ they should be willing to wipe the slate clean, making it ready for the Lord to write upon it whatever He will.

And faith, on the other hand, is where we pledge everlasting love to our spouse.

True faith cannot exist without out true repentance.

One is a change of heart and a turning away from our sin;

The other is a change of affection and a turning toward the Saviour and the Father.

Paul correctly summarized his gospel as exhorting people to “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And true repentance is an on-going thing; in fact it is actually EVERLASTING.

I can’t tell you that Christians never sin, because we see even the best of them sin.

Even the Apostles and other saints in the pages of the Word of God.

But true repentance is a change of mind about sin, and it involves a hatred against sin.

Repentance is not the ABILITY to be victorious over sin, but rather a DESIRE to be victorious.

While Peter warmed himself before the fire of Jesus’ enemies, he anaesthetized his heart, and sinned against God.

But it took just a glance from the Saviour for his heart to be broken over that sin.

Think once again about the fact that “repentance” was spoken as if represented deliverance from sin.

It’s not the same as faith, for in fact, it is somewhat the opposite to faith.

And repentance isn’t the same as eternal life, because it is unto eternal life.

But the point to be made is that without repentance there is no eternal life and no deliverance from sin.

And even though repentance is made in verse 18 to represent salvation, it is important to remember that repentance doesn’t save.

Repentance doesn’t remove sin or even cause the gracious God to look in our direction.

Let’s say that your neighbor got a new car; the fastest, the fanciest, the most fashionable car available.

And let’s say that after breaking the tenth commandment, you also broke the sixth.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s,”

Including his new Chrysler Crossfire automobile.

In this case you broke God’s law about coveting that car so much so that you killed the owner to get it.

But then you came to your senses and realized that there are probably better cars than the Crossfire.

You were filled with remorse; you were sorry that you killed the man.

You restored the car to the man’s widow, and you confessed to her that you had sinned.

You went to the police and gave yourself to their custody.

And not only that you even expressed repentance to God, beseeching Him to forgive and receive you.

Does your remorse and repentance restore the dead man’s life?

Can anything undo what you have done?

Repentance doesn’t save men from their sins, because nothing but God can undo what we have done

All sin is against the Lord.

“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.”

And therefore, “who can forgive sin but God only?“

Forgiveness and deliverance from the effects of our sin, come about only by the grace of God.

So it’s not our faith which saves us, and it’s not our repentance.

We are saved by grace through faith and repentance, not of ourselves, these things are gifts from God.

The church in Jerusalem correctly said, “Praise God, for he has granted repentance to the Gentiles.”

The Greek word translated “granted” is “didomi” ( did’-o-mee ).

It is found 413 times in the Greek New Testament and it is translated “granted” ten times.

365 times it is translated “to give.”

In other words, God has GIVEN repentance to the Gentiles.

Faith and repentance are not things that people dead in sin can do on their own.

These things are gifts of God’s grace.

In chapter 5 Peter said, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour,

For to GIVE repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”

Repentance is a gift of God.

In writing to Timothy, Paul said, “ And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,

In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves;

If God peradventure WILL GIVE them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”

Repentance is a gift from God.

True repentance isn’t the MEANS by which sinners are saved.

Repentance isn’t something that dead people can do, especially the spiritually dead.

Repentance is an act of the living soul, and it proves that God has quickened some sinner who WAS dead in trespasses and sins.

Repentance and faith are gifts of God; vital and essential aspects of God’s saving grace.

Just as a new born baby screams and wails and then clings to its mother,

A new born child of God repents and clings to its Saviour.

If the Holy Spirit is convicting you of sin before God;

If the Lord is in some way putting a fear of Hell, or of death, or of God in your heart,

Then my exhortation to you would be to repent and turn to Christ.

Humble yourself before God, acknowledge your sin before Him and turn from it.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; and trust His sacrifice to atone and cover your sin.

I don’t ask you to analyze where this faith and repentance come from, I just exhort you to do it.

But while I exhort you, I know that your faith and repentance are gifts from God.

If, on the other hand, you do not have any fear of sin, death and Hell,

Then my exhortation to you is to pray that God would put His fear into you.

You NEED to be born again.

“Except a man, or a woman, be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

“Ye must be born again.”

So repent of your sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.