Repentance and Forgiveness - 260210

SPEAKER A 00:00:00 - 00:00:54 Hello, I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Welcome to Let God Speak. Today we will explore the life-changing theme of repentance and forgiveness. The same grace shown to the Israelites is offered to us today through Jesus. We will Let God Speak on how we can experience the freedom of a clean heart and walk with God. Stay with us for truths that will draw you closer to the Saviour. On our panel today we have Cassie Solano and Joshua Wood. Welcome to the program. SPEAKER B 00:00:54 - 00:00:55 Thank you. SPEAKER A 00:00:56 - 00:01:17 Now we will go— we're going to have a little word of prayer just before we get into God's word. Let's bow our heads. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your gift of repentance and the promise of complete forgiveness. Open our hearts to your words today, and may we learn more of your grace towards us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. SPEAKER B 00:01:17 - 00:01:18 Amen. SPEAKER A 00:01:20 - 00:01:50 Romans 3:23 says, we all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. Yet even when we fall into sin, God invites us back to him. Today we are going to discuss how we can stand alive in Christ through the wonderful gift of grace. So, Cassie, there's a story in the Old Testament about the golden calf incident in Exodus 32 and 33, and what does it teach us about human impatience and sin? SPEAKER B 00:01:50 - 00:02:35 Well, we're talking about the time when Moses went up to the mount and he was hidden in the clouds and at that time the people had no visible leader. And that made them impatient because they couldn't see anything in front of them. So as a result, they broke their covenant with God because they demanded an idol that they could see. And I think that shows to us that human impatience has always been there and it still is. And it's very easy to turn from God when we feel He's distant. But on Moses' return, Moses removed all traces of the sin as he interceded for the Israelites' lives. And I think that just shows that that wasn't the end of the story. 'God will definitely come back and forgive,' God renewed their covenant, showing that sincere repentance opens that door to God's forgiveness. SPEAKER A 00:02:35 - 00:02:40 Mm, so it's really like, that story's like an object lesson for our topic, isn't it? SPEAKER B 00:02:40 - 00:02:40 Yeah. SPEAKER A 00:02:40 - 00:02:49 About repentance. And so Joshua, how does this story really connect deeply to that overall theme of forgiveness and repentance? SPEAKER C 00:02:50 - 00:03:30 Mm, shows that God doesn't abandon us in our failure, even when we mess up. He's still there offering repentance, offering us forgiveness. And yeah, He responds to our repentance with a relationship. He wants to draw near to us. And the Israelites are able to learn here that forgiveness is always available when they come to God with a repentant heart. And I love this verse in Hosea 6:1, which sort of illustrates this. It says, "Come and let us return to the Lord." 'For he has torn, but he will heal us; he has stricken, but he will bind us up.' Hmm, beautiful words. SPEAKER A 00:03:30 - 00:04:44 They really do describe the, um, the fact that we might have, you know, consequences or feel bad about sin, but yet God is ready to, to heal and bring restoration to us, which is just a beautiful encouraging thing, isn't it? All right, so let's go back to, um, to the beginning where we find Adam and Eve's tragic fall into sin. And if we have a little read from Genesis chapter 3, we'll look at verse 7 to 10 just to remind ourselves of this story. It says, then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they saw— they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." Okay, so this passage gives us a couple of points about sin that we can learn from. And so, Cassie, what's the first point? SPEAKER B 00:04:44 - 00:05:28 Oh, well, I'd like to turn to Genesis 1:27 where we hear about Adam and Eve for the first time. Mm-hmm. And that says, "So God created man in his own image." "In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them." So that's Adam and Eve who'd been created for this face-to-face relationship. They were in God's image. And further on from that verse we read all in Genesis 1 and 2, God speaking to them freely. They sort of had this conversational relationship. They communed with God. But in verse 7, as we just read, that changed. And then they turned away from God when they realized they were naked. They hid from God and they turned to make their own coverings. And I think the first point we can draw out of that is that they're trying to make their own remedy for their sin. SPEAKER A 00:05:28 - 00:05:29 Aha. SPEAKER B 00:05:29 - 00:05:44 Yeah. And this represents an attempt at salvation via their own works. And I think what we can learn is what underpins that is that sin often leads us to hide from God and to turn away and try and fix it ourselves and depend on ourselves. SPEAKER A 00:05:44 - 00:06:01 Depend on ourselves instead of God's remedy, which we'll of course learn about a little bit more. So Josh, just interested here, why wouldn't they have known they were naked before they sinned? Like, it was kind of like this new discovery that they suddenly realized what they lacked. SPEAKER C 00:06:02 - 00:06:48 Yeah, if we read in Psalms 104:1-2, we sort of get a bit of a description of what, what God looks like, and we were, we were made in the image of God. And so I'm just going to read it. It says, "Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with honour and majesty, who cover yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a curtain." So here it's saying that God was clothed in light and we were made in the image of God. So Adam and Eve were most likely clothed in this sort of soft light that acted as a garment. When they sinned, that robe of light disappeared and they realized that they were naked. And that's why they, they had that shame and they covered themselves with those fig leaves. SPEAKER A 00:06:50 - 00:06:55 Thank you for that insight. That really gives us some perspective on this. So Cassie, what's the second thing we can learn from this? SPEAKER B 00:06:56 - 00:07:15 Yeah, well, I'll turn back to Genesis and I'll just remind us. Genesis 2:17 says, this is God speaking, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, 'For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.' So that means Adam and Eve's, not only their personal relationship with God would be destroyed, but they would die as well. SPEAKER A 00:07:16 - 00:07:16 Wow. SPEAKER B 00:07:16 - 00:07:38 Mm-hmm. And verse 10 back in chapter 3 says, 'They were afraid of God because of their nakedness.' They knew this beforehand. And as we sort of read in that Psalm, sin cannot exist in the presence of God's majesty. It's incompatible with God. So they were aware that they had sinned and then could be no longer with God as they were. SPEAKER A 00:07:39 - 00:08:23 Hmm. Thank you for that background and also the lessons that we can learn from that story. It really does set the scene for this, for this discussion, just knowing this history. So let's just have a look now at Romans 5:12, where it basically gives a summary comment. It says, therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, "And thus death spread to all men because all sinned." So obviously sin entered creation, it brought shame, it drove humanity away from God. And now, as you pointed out, Cassie, man seeks his own way through all kinds of works depending on himself. How are these works viewed by God, Joshua? SPEAKER C 00:08:23 - 00:09:08 Yeah, there's many different world religions that look to use works as a way of obtaining salvation. But we see here in the Bible, especially in Isaiah 64:6, that God sees it pretty differently. It says, "But we all are like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf." and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And so even though we may try to do good things ourselves, that righteousness is still seen as filthy rags to God. We need God to be fully clean. SPEAKER A 00:09:09 - 00:09:54 Yeah, that's, I guess, that's an important perspective because I think often we find that, you know, if we do something that's trying to fix ourselves or make ourselves look good, we can feel pretty confident and proud of what we've done and think, "Yeah, there's got to be some merit to that," and it can give us some sort of satisfaction. But God says no, that's not even worthwhile. Like, that's not even something that meets the standard that he needs. Um, so it's, it's good to have that perspective for us, isn't it? So all humans are born with a fallen, sinful nature, obviously, since man sinned, and it's a lost condition and needs a savior. So Cassie, what is the good news? Because that's, um, the situation we find ourselves in could be quite considered quite hopeless. SPEAKER B 00:09:54 - 00:10:00 Oh, but there's plenty of hope in the Bible, and I think I'd like to turn to a couple of verses to get that because it's full of good news. SPEAKER A 00:10:00 - 00:10:01 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER B 00:10:01 - 00:10:43 So first I'll start Romans 5:17, which says, "For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ." Mm. So they're talking about through the one is sin entering humanity through Adam's sin, as we read earlier. That through faith and belief in Jesus we can have righteousness in life. So I think I'd like to read famous John 3:16, which says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Mm, that's such a beautiful verse, isn't it? SPEAKER A 00:10:43 - 00:11:02 Just summarizes it just in one go like that. Um, yeah, okay, so Jesus paid the price for our sin and redeemed us. Yes, you explained, but we still live in this world with natures that are naturally comfortable and even, you know, have an attraction towards sin. So, Josh, what is the first step in dealing with sin? SPEAKER C 00:11:02 - 00:11:52 Hmm, yeah, one of the definitions of sin that we see in the Bible, especially in 1 John 3:4, is that sin is the transgression of the law, and the Holy Spirit Reveals the law to us and prompts us when we're disobeying the law through our conscience. And yeah, if we read John 16:8, we'll get a little bit more insight into this. This is Jesus speaking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit and says, "And when He has come," that is the Holy Spirit, "He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. So the Holy Spirit, the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin, and that first step is to listen to that conviction from the Holy Spirit. SPEAKER A 00:11:54 - 00:12:08 Excellent. It's reassuring that we don't have to depend on ourselves for conviction, that the Holy Spirit will bring it to our minds, because sometimes we don't realize we've done things wrong. So Cassie, we talk about repentance, but what exactly is repentance? SPEAKER B 00:12:09 - 00:12:54 Well, the word repentance itself actually comes from the Greek noun, and that's metanoia, and that just means to change your mind. So repentance often has a very intense connotation, and I'm sure a lot of people think it's a lot harder than it is. Mm-hmm. It's just changing your mind. So it's this genuine turning away. When we use that phrase, it's not just you kind of decide, it's you've fully decided. So you've got to turn away from a previous belief or behavior entirely. So keeping that in mind, biblical repentance involves two steps. And the first is to have sincere pain and sorrow for that sin. So you are deciding to turn away from it completely. And that's the second step. It's that honest decision that you will make. And it's fundamentally an internal change of thinking. SPEAKER A 00:12:55 - 00:12:59 Excellent. Okay, so it's just switching, switching direction, isn't it, really? SPEAKER B 00:12:59 - 00:12:59 That's right. SPEAKER A 00:13:00 - 00:13:10 And a change of thought, change of heart. Joshua, what is the difference between worldly sorrow and true repentance? Can you explain that a bit for us? SPEAKER C 00:13:10 - 00:13:17 Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, worldly sorrow sort of more focuses on the consequences of sin. SPEAKER A 00:13:18 - 00:13:18 Okay. SPEAKER C 00:13:18 - 00:14:11 So, looking at like what's happening because of our sin, the pain and the suffering that comes because of sin. That's sort of what worldly sorrow is. On the other hand, real repentance is a sorrow for the way that sin has hurt Jesus. Our sin is what put Jesus on the cross, and it caused Jesus a lot of pain. So when we have real repentance, we realize the enormity of the suffering that our sin put Jesus through. And yeah, the Holy Spirit brings us to the foot of the cross, and when we realize what our sin has done to Jesus, we realize, yeah, just how much we owe to Him. And yeah, it's important that we, we don't grieve the Holy Spirit, that we don't take it for granted, that we have that true repentance every time that we sin. SPEAKER A 00:14:13 - 00:14:57 Excellent. Thank you for explaining that difference. And I believe there's a story that we can look at that illustrates the contrast between true repentance and, um, and it's counterfeit. So let's have a little look at Matthew 27 and verse 3. And this is the story of Judas. It says, then Judas, his betrayer— that is, Jesus' betrayer— seeing that he had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying the innocent. Blood. So Cassie, did Judas truly repent? And what is the important point we can learn from his story? SPEAKER B 00:14:57 - 00:15:17 Oh well, we can continue to read verses 4 and 5 in Matthew 27, which says, this is Judas saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed. And went and hanged himself. So that's the story. So obviously— SPEAKER A 00:15:17 - 00:15:18 Oh, that was not a good outcome. SPEAKER B 00:15:19 - 00:16:11 Definitely not. But we look at further in the context of him being one of these 12 disciples, and his motivation really seems to be he thought Jesus would get out of it, and that he wanted Jesus' earthly kingdom, as did a lot of the disciples, to come to fruition. And as you've read in verse 3, it was that seeing that he had been condemned and he hadn't got himself out of it was really what motivated him. And I think that's another thing where we talk about this difference between the types of sorrow that we feel. That was just because he didn't want that outcome, and he felt remorseful that he then thought that's not what he wanted to happen, and it's a negative outcome for himself. But he was sorrowful over that. So is that really true repentance, that it might not be considered that when we talk about it has to change our minds for the better and turn towards God. That wasn't really in his picture. SPEAKER A 00:16:12 - 00:16:16 I guess if his plan succeeded, he probably wouldn't have been sorry, would he? SPEAKER B 00:16:16 - 00:16:17 Seems like it. SPEAKER A 00:16:17 - 00:16:34 So, um, yeah, really he was upset because of the consequences, um, of that, of that choice that he made. So, hmm, all right, so the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin that leads to repentance. You've both mentioned that. What does repentance lead to, Joshua? SPEAKER C 00:16:35 - 00:17:56 Yeah, it's a process. It's the process of sanctification. It begins with conviction from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts us of what we're doing that's wrong. Then we repent, we turn around, that metanoia. We turn away from our sin and we seek forgiveness. With that, that leads to genuine repentance. And when we repent, we confess our sins. And when that happens, God forgives us. We obtain forgiveness from God and salvation from God. And this is sort of illustrated in 1 John 1:9. I'd just like to read it. It says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I love this promise because it's so simple. If we confess our sins, He will cleanse us from our unrighteousness. Also, I'd love to read Proverbs 28:13. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He who covers his sin will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy." And again, this illustrates his point of confessing sin and how it leads to us obtaining mercy. SPEAKER A 00:17:57 - 00:18:22 Hmm, yeah, that's an encouragement for us, isn't it, to take up and respond to God's call to true repentance. Okay, so there's a parable that Jesus told about a wedding banquet. And in this parable in Matthew 22:1-14, 14, we can learn something. So what does it teach us about the wedding garment, Cassie? SPEAKER B 00:18:22 - 00:19:23 Oh well, as a quick summary, this was everyone invited to the wedding that the king was holding, and they were all offered a robe. But the one guest that decided not to wear it was cast out. And that represents Jesus offering this righteousness, and it's His own perfect righteousness to every invited repentant sinner. And I think the key point is that's freely given. It's like the king was giving out these robes, then you could not decide to wear it. But without Jesus' robe and without the righteousness clothing us, we will not be allowed into heaven. And that's what this banquet represents. It is Christ's righteousness that is imparted to us that makes us righteous. And nothing we can do can have this for us. Themselves. And we find this reflected outside of just that parable, that Revelation 19, verse 8 says, 'And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.' Hmm, that's beautiful. SPEAKER A 00:19:23 - 00:19:37 And I know in that passage in Revelation it's also talking about a wedding, isn't it? But it's a spiritual wedding between Christ and His church. So that's a really good example Wonderful. What does the robe represent for God's people, Joshua? SPEAKER C 00:19:38 - 00:20:02 Yeah, we can find the answer for that in Isaiah 61:10. It says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments. And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. SPEAKER B 00:20:02 - 00:20:02 Hmm. SPEAKER C 00:20:03 - 00:20:30 So here we see that this robe is talking about the spotless, wrinkle-free garment of righteousness that Christ is clothing His church with. And if we look back to what we were looking at before of, with Adam and Eve and how they tried to kind of create their own garment of righteousness and how that didn't work at all. And we see that, that Christ gave them a garment made of animal skins. SPEAKER A 00:20:31 - 00:20:31 Yes, that's true. SPEAKER C 00:20:31 - 00:20:57 And the process of creating that garment involved a sacrifice, the killing of, of these animals. And it sort of illustrated for Adam and Eve what it was going to take for them to be ultimately saved and to have this robe of righteousness that was going to, that Jesus was going to offer through His sacrifice. And so, yeah, when we accept Jesus' sacrifice, we accept that robe of righteousness unto ourselves. SPEAKER A 00:20:58 - 00:21:22 Mm. And this obviously is a robe of righteousness which God approves, isn't it? Not like our own one, which is filthy rags, as I said earlier, but this one is something that's perfect, that we can be confident in coming to God with that robe on. Let's think about this practically, Cassie. How can we choose to wear Jesus' robe of righteousness every day? SPEAKER B 00:21:23 - 00:21:30 It means surrendering ourselves to Jesus and letting the Holy Spirit every day intentionally transform our character. SPEAKER A 00:21:30 - 00:21:31 Mm. SPEAKER B 00:21:31 - 00:22:08 That, yeah, we repent and we confess and we give ourselves over to Jesus and say, "You will lead my life and you will put your robe over me." But we don't focus on trying to change ourselves. We don't try and make our own coverings. It's giving ourselves to Jesus and making that intentional decision that we exchange our burdens for His righteousness, it says in Zechariah 3:4, and live in that daily dependence on God and in Jesus. And it's not to cover up our unconfessed sin. We still have to confess that and know that it's there, that we give that over and repent. And it's the power of God that then transforms us transforms us. SPEAKER A 00:22:09 - 00:22:44 Beautiful. All right, so it's something that we can, we can put on every day if we confess our sins and we put our trust in, in Christ for his righteousness. He can transform our character, you mentioned. So that's, um, that's really inspiring for us, isn't it? Because sometimes it can be discouraging when we realize our faults and that we don't have, um, we don't meet the standard, it's encouraging we can turn to Christ. Yeah, very good. Okay, so Joshua, what encouragement does this give us when we feel weighed down by sin? SPEAKER C 00:22:46 - 00:23:35 Yeah, it's so encouraging because we, we realize that we never have to stay away from the foot of the cross. We always got a place, place there, and Christ will always forgive us. I love to read Revelation 3:20. It says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me." So every day Jesus is knocking at the door of our hearts. He's wanting to come in with us and to be with us and to give us that abiding relationship. But he only comes in if we open the door. It's a choice that we make. And yeah, His grace lifts that burden from us the moment we repent and when we can have that salvation through Him. SPEAKER A 00:23:35 - 00:23:37 It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? SPEAKER C 00:23:37 - 00:23:37 Mm-hmm. SPEAKER A 00:23:37 - 00:23:54 I love it. Imagine Jesus just knocking on the door of our heart and it's such a— I think it's such a picture of Him being a gentleman towards us, you know. He respects our choices but He would love to help us. So that's really beautiful. So Kelsey, what's actually the result of true repentance? Repentance? SPEAKER B 00:23:54 - 00:24:22 There's plenty of results, but yeah, the biggest one I think is that it leads us to life. So in Acts 11, verse 18, we read, when they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God, saying, then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. So that summed up really nicely there that it's a fairly simple process, but it will also let go of all of the shame and all of the guilt we've had, and we get that life eternal as well. SPEAKER A 00:24:23 - 00:24:43 And it makes a difference in our lives now, doesn't it? You know, absolutely. Freedom from guilt. Um, yeah, it can feel like you have a whole new lease on life, doesn't it? Yeah, it's quite an amazing thing to be transformed by, by God in that way. So Joshua, how should we respond to God's invitation to repentance and forgiveness today? SPEAKER C 00:24:43 - 00:25:19 It's so simple. All we need to do is to run to the cross, to confess our sins and to let Jesus clothe us in that righteousness that He's offering us. And yeah, as we read in 1 John 1:9, He is faithful to forgive us and to completely cleanse us if only we let Him and we repent. So yeah, I just want to encourage everyone to daily choose the good choice and to live in that abiding relationship with Jesus and to daily accept that robe of righteousness that He gives us. SPEAKER A 00:25:20 - 00:28:29 Yeah, beautiful, isn't it? It's so amazing how that God can, you know, we've come to a point of need, obviously, you know, we're sinful and all of that, and He says, "I have a remedy, you know, I can provide forgiveness, I can help you, and I can even provide righteousness. You know, you can't do right all on your own, but I've got He's got grace and strength to help you, and that way you'll be able to reach the standard that He calls us to reach, isn't it? A— such a reassuring thing that gives us a lot of hope. Now I just want to read one more verse, which is another beautiful thought, and this comes from Acts 5, and this is verses 31 and— or 30 and 31, I'll read that. It says, the God of our fathers raised 'He has raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.' And I just wanted to read that because it says something really profound which we haven't yet talked about, and that is the fact that it says Jesus will give us repentance. Repentance. And I don't know about you, but sometimes— and you can tell me if you have resonated with this— sometimes it feels like it's too hard to repent. Have you experienced that? Where you, you know it's wrong, but you just— it's just too hard to turn away. And this is a promise we can claim, that, you know, if we know what is right but we feel like we can't turn away, we can ask God to give us repentance, and he will do that for us. And that means that whatever we need, He can provide, which is such an amazing thing. And so we can praise God for the gift that He has given us. Well, I want to thank you so much, Joshua and Cassie, for sharing on our program today. And I hope that it's been a blessing for you as it has been for me. Friends, if the weight of sin is heavy today, Jesus stands ready with open arms. Confess, repent, and receive his forgiveness right now. He will cleanse you completely and will wrap you with his perfect righteousness, and you can claim the promises we've looked at today. We are glad you've joined us on Let God Speak. Remember, all past programs plus teacher's notes are available on our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au. Email us on [email protected]. At 3abnaustralia.org.au. We'd love to hear from you. Tell your friends and join us again next time. May God bless you. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.