Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More
Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Necessity of Repentance Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 3: 19-26.
One day this old world’s gonna pass away and one day God’s bringing in a new world and a new heaven. Have you not read Revelation 21? One day all the corruption in this world is gonna fade away and there’s gonna be purity and righteousness and true peace in the world.
Can God’s people say amen? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and we welcome you to the Hopeworth Having Radio broadcast. We’re excited today to be in Acts chapter 3. We’re continuing our study on the necessity of repentance.
That’s a word that’s not mentioned a lot today in the church, but it’s one that needs to be. The Apostle Peter is now standing before thousands preaching the gospel and letting them know what they need to do is to repent and believe.
So let’s grab our pen and let’s get our Bibles and let’s start taking some notes together as we learn the necessity of repentance. You see, repentance is not a one-time thing in my life. But it doesn’t stop.
Did you know that? That we are called to live a life of repentance? That we are called to confess our sins. Why is it that so many Christians are troubled in their hearts because they have not brought their sins to God?
Why is it that they are struggling in their faith and they are anemic in their power with God? It is because there are unresolved sins in their life. There are unresolved issues in their hearts and they just hold on to it and they tuck it in the corner and they put it in the closet of their hearts.
And they refuse to address it and they refuse to deal with it. And you know what it does? It weighs them down. It slows them down. It makes them anemic in the kingdom of God. What you need to do is to come to the foot of the cross and you need to repent of all your sins and you need to confess all your sins.
Not just yesterday, but every day of your life. Now you might say to me, Mike, you don’t realize how good I am. You don’t understand how close I am to perfection. Now the Pharisees were like that. And Jesus said, even if you think it, you’re guilty.
Not only am I held to the high standard of righteousness through my actions, but my thoughts. And you say, well, Mike, I have a very good thought life. It has been sanctified by the Spirit. And it is washed in the blood, and it is guided by the Word.
But did you know Jesus addressed the issue and said, if you even doing good things for God, do it for the wrong reason that you are guilty before God? You see, not only are my actions accountable to God, and my thoughts are accountable to God, but my motives are accountable to God.
I mean, you would have found a better group. church members than the Pharisees. I mean, they faithfully gave and they faithfully served. And they were faithfully out there blowing their trumpet, letting everybody know that they were helping in the community and giving to charity.
You would have never found more faithful people to show up at the house of the Lord in the synagogue. But Jesus said their heart was far from me. You say, well, Mike, I got the actions down. I got the thoughts down.
I got the motives down. How about this one? Did you know you’re held accountable for negligence in your life? The Bible says he that knows to do good and doesn’t do it to him, it is then. That there are sins of omission, not just commission.
That there are things that God has prompted us to do, that the Spirit has led us to do. There are things that we know are right to do based on the word of God, and yet we fail to do it. And we are held accountable to God.
Jesus stood there preaching and teaching the Beatitudes. And after giving the beatitudes, he said to the people, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
You talk about a blowback. You talk about dropping the mic because everyone there thought, if anybody’s going to heaven, it’s gotta be the Pharisees. And Jesus said, unless you’re better than them, you’re not going there.
Now Jesus wasn’t asking them to be better than the Pharisees. You see, a lot of Christians misunderstand that. They think, okay, we gotta work harder. We gotta work faster. We gotta dig deeper. We gotta climb higher.
That’s not what Jesus is asking you to do. He’s asking you to acknowledge, I’m a sinner. I can’t save myself. I can’t work my way to heaven. I could never be good enough to be better than them. be worthy of entering into the kingdom of God.
So how do you get there? By repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Please understand, that his life is your life. You say, well, I didn’t live a perfect life, but Jesus did. And by faith, that perfect life is applied to you.
And by faith, he blots out your sins. And you say, well, why do I have to keep coming to God? Why do I have to keep confessing? Because I need to have in clear conscience before God and before others.
Every day we fail God. Every day we fail others. Are you with me? There is not one of us here that’s perfect. There’s not one of us that has arrived. I don’t care how many times your GPS says you have arrived.
You have come short. There are times I’m gonna fail you, I’m gonna disappoint you, I’m gonna offend you, I’m gonna hurt you. It’s not that I intentionally wanna do that, I hope my heart’s not like that.
But it’s just the reality of humanity and how we are flawed people, we are sinful people, we are selfish people, what is the remedy? It is to be at the foot of the cross in my prayer life, confessing my sins, asking the Spirit to bring anything to my attention that I need to bring before God so that I might, as the apostle said, live in clear conscience before God and I might live in clear conscience before others.
Here’s the question I want you to consider. Have you seen the ugliness of your sin? Have you turned to God in repentance, seeking his mercy and forgiveness? And my friends, I want you to know that that is why we repent, that we may experience the blotting out, the wiping away of our sin.
But the second reason that we should repent is that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Hang on church, I’m back in verse 19, repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.
So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Jump down to verse 21, whom heaven must receive, referring to Jesus. Jesus, heaven received Jesus. They must receive until the times of restoration of all things.
Underscore those phrases. You need to be cognizant of those two phrases. You need to be alert and aware of these two phrases. The times of refreshing and the times of restoration. These phrases are the times of refreshing, refreshing, the times of restoration.
They are referring to the hope that we have in the coming of our Savior and the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are referring to the rest and the refreshment that we have as new creations in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are familiar with 2 Corinthians 5 .17 which says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become what church? Hallelujah. We look at it and we say, oh, that’s beautiful.
And that’s what it means spiritually. But let me tell you, it’s more than that. Jesus is teaching us here through the apostle Peter that there are times of refreshing. There is a new creation. There is a newness that is to come upon all believers through the presence of the Lord.
It is first spiritual that when we repent and are converted to the Lord when we turn back to God, there is a newness. I remember one man telling me, even the song sounded better when he went to church and even the preacher sounded better once he came to the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Old things have passed away. Old thought patterns have passed away when you come to Jesus. Old habits have passed away when you come to Jesus. I want you to know that there is a newness when you come to Christ.
There is a new spirit living within you. There are new desires. There is a new passion. There is a new focus. There is a new assignment from heaven. The newness of God has infiltrated your heart. It has taken over your life.
This is a reflection that you have truly repented and you have truly converted to God. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation spiritually. But wait a minute. It doesn’t end there because each and every one of us as believers is awaiting the full experience of that refreshment through the return of Jesus Christ.
That’s what I’m trying to say to you one day it’s not only as spiritually, but it’s going to be physically in your life. One day, get this, you are not only now in the times of refreshing in the presence of the Lord as you sense his presence in your life, as you sense this newness in your life, as you sense the manifestation of God in your life that he has blotted out your sins.
But can I tell you that one day in the presence, the physical presence of the Lord, in the return of Jesus Christ, there is going to be getting rid of the old and embracing the new creation? One day, I know that you’re trying to do everything to hold on to your body, but one day you’re going to lay down this old body and you’re going to take on a new body.
Listen to me. One day your body is going to go from corruptible to incorruptible. One day your body is going to go from mortal to immortal. Why should I repent? Because the times of refreshing are coming in the presence of the Lord.
Why should I repent? Because the times of restoration of all things are coming in the Lord. And we not only have this hope now, but we have this hope in the future that one day this old world’s going to pass away, and one day God’s bringing in a new world and a new heaven.
Have you not read Revelation 21? One day all the corruption in this world is going to fade away and there’s going to be purity and righteousness and true peace in the world. Can God’s people say amen?
I want you to listen and note. In 1 Corinthians 10, 11, now all things happened to them as examples. The apostle Paul said all things happened to the Old Testament saints as an example to you. And they were written for our admonition.
We read the book of Exodus. We read the judges. We read about the things that happened in the book of Genesis. They are written for our admonition to bring to our mind, to remind us. But Paul says something interesting at the end of this verse, upon whom?
Who? Believers. Those who’ve repented. Those who have converted upon whom the end of the ages have come. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about us as believers, that the hope of the gospel and the hope of what is to come in the full restoration and refreshing has already begun to come upon us in that we have been converted and now we have a newness in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a pickup in our step because we are excited for the Lord, because we are passionate about loving the passing of the old and we are embracing all that is new in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let’s revert back.
What Peter is trying to explain to his hearers and to each one of us this morning, that which was seen in the healing of the cripple was a foretaste of the world to come. We open the book of Acts and so many times Christians want to repeat it.
So many times Christians want to say, well, we want these miraculous Acts. Now listen to me. There were many people crippled at the time. the gate. There were many beggars. There were tons of people who were struggling physically, but they all did not get healed.
But this beggar did. Why? It was not only to show the power of the gospel and to affirm the message and the messenger, but it was a design to help believers see what is to come. It is the foreshadowing that there’s coming a day church when the lame will walk.
There’s coming a day when death will be heard. There’s coming a day when those who cannot speak will be able to praise the Lord and they will rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ and they will use their tongue to celebrate the greatness of our God.
Isaiah, the prophet describes it like this in Isaiah chapter 11 verse 6. He says the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fatlings or the steers together and a little child shall lead them.” He goes on to say that the children will play with serpents.
Now you look at this and you say, whoa, all this is upside down. All this is backward. Praise God. Because of the old sinful nature, the Adamic nature of Adam and Eve that was passed on to us because they had disobeyed God and now we’re all born sinners into this world, it is gone.
It is wiped away because Jesus Christ has brought the times of refreshing and the times of restoration to all who believe in Him. Now, do you think would you let your little children or your grandchildren play and lead the leopard?
Do you think a leopard would lie down next to a goat and not get hungry? Do you think that children ought to play with snakes? I want you to understand something. Why would that all take place here? The times of restoration are coming through the second coming of Jesus.
It is our hope that God is going to make everything that is wrong right when God is going to bring true justice. But let me tell you what else He’s going to do. He’s going to wipe away the sinful nature and the curse of sin that is upon this earth.
Why is it that our little pets die because of the curse of sin? Why is it that our bodies get old and have to go see the doctor over and over again? Why is it that we have to deal with death so much because of the curse of sin?
The hope of the gospel church is that why should I repent and believe because the times of restoration… are coming to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The plan of God was not only to save your soul but upon the return of Jesus to restore all things.
Back to the Garden of Eden. Back to paradise. Back to beauty. Back to glory and majesty to God. Romans 8 .21, the Bible says, the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
If you’re a student of the Bible, I want you to write these things down because you’re going to love this, as we study Romans chapter 8, we see that creation groans. We see that believers groan.
And we see that the Spirit groans. Well, why don’t you just sit there with me? Turn over to Romans chapter eight. You say, how do you explain these verses? First, we see creation groans, verse 18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
He’s not just talking about persecution, but he’s talking about the sufferings of the curse of sin. People say to me, why does God allow suffering? God is a God who created the world in perfection. God has chosen that we would not be robots and therefore he allowed us to have the choice to respond and to be obedient to him because you don’t want your spouse to love you because they have to.
You don’t want your children to love you because they have to. You want them to do it out of their heart and out of their own will. And God wants you to love him because you choose to love him because it comes from your heart, not that you are forced to love him.
And sin entered the world because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. The ramifications of sin entering the world is that the curse of sin spread across this entire planet and every human that is born is born with a sinful nature.
And if you deny that just have some children and it’ll change your theology, I mean, you don’t have to train a kid to be selfish, do you? You don’t have to train a child to have a temper tantrum. There’s no parents saying, let me teach you to have a meltdown in Walmart when you can’t have the toy or the candy bar that you want.
These kids automatically know it. That’s another sermon. But let me say this, why? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? It happens because there’s sin in this world church. because the whole creation is groaning in the curse of sin.
Look at verse 19 of chapter 8 of Romans. He says to us, for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption.
That’s what I’m talking about the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. So we say creation groans, believers groan.
Look at verse 23, not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, what? Grown within ourselves. Why are we groaning? Eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
Why do you crawl out of bed and say, oh, ow, what happened there? Why do you look in the mirror and run away and say, who was that person? Because you are groaning over the decaying of your body, and you can slow it down, and you can try to improve this and do whatever you got to do and get what you got to get and get rid of what you got to get rid of, but it’s ultimately going to decay.
So not only is the body, because we’re looking for verse 26, likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, for we did not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered.
What I told you is that creation groans, believers groan, but the Spirit is groaning. The Spirit is interceding and praying, understanding our hurts, understanding our heartaches, understanding our hangups, understanding our sinfulness, understanding our limitations, and how finite we are, understanding how flawed we are.
The Spirit groans through prayer, bringing hope, bringing promise to each of us. There is a better day. We’re going to go to the third reason, that He may send the Christ appointed for you. I want you to go back to Acts chapter 3.
I want you to go back to verse 20. that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before. Christ was not only preached to them before through the apostle Peter but he was preached to them before through the Old Testament prophets.
To understand this final section, and we’ll fast-track it for you, to help you, you need to see the big picture. That the purpose and the calling of Israel, a nation, was to be a nation of light to the Gentiles.
It was not chosen because it was better, it was better looking, it was not chosen, but just in God’s wisdom and God’s sovereignty, he chose this nation, the nation of Israel. He chose them that they would bless the world, that they would be a light to the world.
Well, they messed it up. They got confused. But God called them for that purpose. And He made an inviting covenant to the prophets, to the patriarchs. He made a covenant with Abraham. He made a covenant with David.
He made a covenant to His people that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Listen to what the apostle Paul says in Galatians 3:16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and two seeds, as of many, but as of one, your seed, who is Christ.
So God’s saving purpose, His redemptive purpose in this world, not leaving us to ourselves, not leaving us to our sin, not leaving us to our selfishness. God called Abraham out of the darkness. He made him a promise.
And the promise was that he would bring salvation. He would bring redemption. It ties right into the very purpose of God in Revelation 5, which says that they sang a new song. This is the throng of people around the throne in the book of Revelation.
What is it that they sang? You are worthy to take the scroll, referring to Christ, and to open its seal for you or slain. And you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and every tongue and every people and every nation.
In essence, what would bring the most glory to God is not that he would just save the Jewish people, but that he would save every person from every nation, every tribe, every ethnic group, every people group, that Jesus Christ would offer himself up as the sacrificial lamb and people from all walks of life would come to God through Jesus Christ because he paid the price for their sin.
Now listen, that was God’s ultimate plan for Israel. That is what they initiated and it would be fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus came from the lineage of the Israelites. He came from a Jewish heritage. And that’s why Peter says to them in verse 22, From your brethren, who is that prophet?
It is Jesus. He is the faithful proclaimer of the truths of God. He is the culmination of God’s promise. Jump down to verse 24. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.
The prophets spoke of these times of refreshing and these times of restoration. Verse 25, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham in your seed all the families of the earth shall be what churched.
Genesis 12 to the promise to Abraham, I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. How will all the nations and all the people groups and people from all walks of life be blessed?
Through Christ, that salvation would be offered to them. Look at verse 23, and it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet, who is that prophet, Jesus, be utterly destroyed from among the people.
He’s referring to the second coming of Christ. He is referring to that time when Jesus comes and he destroys all the enemies of God and those who have rejected him. Hang on. If we do not repent today and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is only everlasting destruction waiting for those who reject God.
That’s what Peter’s message is. He again reaffirms us in 2 Peter 3 .7, but by his word, the present heavens and the earth are being reserved for fire kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people.
There are only two possible responses to the gospel. It is to repent and return to God. Or it is to reject him and be destroyed. by his wrath. Would you pray with me? MUSIC Well, as we’re learning about repentance, we have to look at our own hearts and we have to make sure that we are living a repentant life.
God not only calls us to repent, but He calls us to continue to repent. And every time we sin against God, we’re called to bring it to Him and confess it and then make things right with Him. And so I hope that’ll be true in your life.
And if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, that as you hear the Gospel taught and preached, your response would be repentance and faith and that you would truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, turning away from your sin and embracing the cross.
Well, I want to encourage you to check out our website, HopeworthHaving .com. There are many features on it. And go in there and you can catch up with some of our materials, different things we’ve preached, and…
be able to read about different articles and it’ll be a great resource for you so I hope you’ll take advantage of that. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.