Romans 2:4–6Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 2. I have a lot of Scripture today. I have some of the Scripture probably the first half of the sermon, you're going to have to do the work yourself. And so there's one or two ways that this can go down.
One thing you won't be able to do today, unless you've got half a photographic memory and your retention rate is extremely high and your understanding rate is extremely high, maybe you can walk away. I don't think it's going to be very easy today to walk away and not process through this through the week or the coming months. Right? I think that's important. So what I'm doing today is I'm not necessarily giving a bunch of answers; I am posing a bunch of questions, and it is the job of a believer in Christ to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. So we're just going to pose some ideas, some concepts, some things that really,
Point 1Predispositions shape how we read Scripture
Honestly, shape how we interpret the Bible. Each one of you today, although you're not a theologian, although you might have been in a non-denominational church, have been shaped by two specific theological positions, and the way that you interpret the Bible is affected by these two positions. You may not even know them. You may not know the name of them. You might not know everything that these two positions believe, but they have affected your belief. Therefore, when you read the Bible, your predisposition begins to shape how you read. How many of you know that if I were to talk about, and it is in this section, if I were to say "repentance," and then we would get everyone to write what they believe and to define repentance as it's meant and as it's being used in the particular text we're going to read, how many of you would think that we would all say the exact same thing? And the reason for that is you're shaped by life, you're shaped by experiences, but more importantly, you're shaped by theological positions. And these positions are held by your parents, by the church you used to go to when you were a kid, by just your personal opinion.
And nothing, listen, nothing destroys our ability to take God at his word like a predisposition.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:25
Nothing. And I used to say this and I think I'm changing my opinion. I think I'm changing it. We live in a generation now where people have a difficult time thinking critically. If you're on Twitter, you'll really believe that, they just, you know, just don't give me facts, just be emotional about it. Like facts blow people's minds. They don't know how to deal with facts. But I don't think it's that people can't think critically. I think it's that people can't think, because every time you think, it requires you to be critical in your thought process. Just activating your brain is critical processing, right? The problem is we live in a generation where people don't think. They have other people think for them. And so a lot of people never really form an original thought on their own. And the problem with that is that you're being shaped by other men's opinions, and then that's shaping you to such a degree that you have a predisposition when you then read the Bible, and you can't hear the truth just as it is. Another problem is, in the world today, particularly theologically, when we're reading Romans, which is a very heavy doctrine book, one of the problems is there are just some things that we read in the Bible that you ain't going to understand.
You're just not going to get it. So theological positions and opinions have formed camps over something that we're not made to understand. We just take God at his word.
He says it, we believe it, and so you don't have to have a full understanding. Now, I would say this: a lot of people say everything in the Christian life is by faith, you don't understand anything. No, God calls us to get an understanding in things. But there are just some ways that God operates that we just don't understand. We just have to take him at his word that's what he does, and we say, "He's God, and he does that, and I don't get that, and that doesn't compute in my culture and in my life, but we just know that God is bigger than us, and we're not God, and it is what it is." And, I don't understand how God can love and hate. I don't understand that. I don't understand how those two things coexist. I'm just, I mean, maybe you do. Like, I mean, I thought God was only love. I didn't know hate was in there. So there's just so many things in the life of the church that just don't make sense.
Right? Who understands how God is in three persons, and Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and God the Father is God? So when Jesus came, it was Jesus, but it was God. You know, I can't... There's just so many things, you just, good luck explaining it, right? And good luck understanding. We just know that the Word says it, so it is what it is. All right, Romans 2:4–6 says this. And I want to talk to us right off the beginning about two theological camps that will shape the rest of this chapter and the rest, really, of the Bible, but specifically in this chapter. And then I want to point out two key words that are shaped by these two positions, and the way that our predisposition in these theological positions shapes how we interpret this text.
Romans 2:4–6 says, "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness?" How many of you are taking God's goodness for granted?
"Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Not to lead you to keep sinning so you can keep doing that because you love doing that. His kindness is to lead you to repentance, to put those things away, to put off the old man, to put on the new man. Not to cause you to enter into fatalism, as we talked about last week: "Because God is good, I'm just going to do whatever I want, because how could a good God punish me?" And then in verse 5 it says, "But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath." Yay! Nothing like treasuring up for yourself a little bit of wrath "when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." Now, I want to, then we go to verse 6, and it says this. I really want to put 6 and 7 together, but that's not the way we broke this down. So here's number 6: "He will render to each one according to his works." How many of you feel super comfortable with that? "He will render to each one according to his works." Now, there are two things, and if you mark in your Bible, I would encourage you to mark these. There are two things in here that are words that are shaped by these two theological positions that I'm going to talk to you about today. The first one is repentance.
He is speaking to those who are self-righteous. Ladies and gentlemen, do not let the self-righteous part of this text be lost on you, because having an understanding that Paul is coming at self-righteous people, we need to understand then that repentance and works can easily find itself in self-righteous behavior by which we will be saved. In other words, that repentance is a work to get me a spot, or works, or things I do to get me a spot in heaven. Notice he is coming after that. He is coming after people that say, "I'm going to earn my way because I did this, because I follow the law, because I did this, that I'm going to have a spot in heaven." And Paul is saying no. And then he goes right after that, after saying no, self-righteous people won't enter heaven, only those who are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And then he goes after them and he begins to talk about two key words in the life of the church that are attached to salvation: repentance and works, by which we shouldn't be doing in our own strength. All right, so that's my preface for what Paul is getting at here. He's saying there is a self-righteous way we repent and there's a true way we repent; there's a self-righteous way we do works and there is a godly way we do good works. Do not do the self-righteous part of that, because that won't earn you a spot in heaven. All right, here's the two positions. I made this slide and I put it on the desktop.
Point 2Calvinism and Arminianism both fall short
Here's the two positions that shape our interpretation of the Bible. All right, Calvinists hold the position in what is called, they're called Five-Point Calvinists.
Have you heard of that? How many of you have heard of that? All right, Five-Point Calvinist. The five points are broken up into, so you have one, two, three, four, five, in a word called TULIP. All right, here's what they believe about salvation in the life of someone who comes to life in Christ. This is where it starts. We start as people who are totally depraved. We read about people who are totally depraved in chapter 1, that they're depraved, that they're, hey, listen, they are a slave to sin. Actually, he says they are dead in their trespasses and their sin. It's totally and completely, you're dead. Dead people don't talk, dead people don't walk, dead people don't swim, dead people don't hear. You're dead. It will take a miracle to un-dead yourself. All right, you with me?
Total and utter depravity. A slave to sin is what it says in the Bible. We are a slave to it. Sin is our slave master.
The second point of Calvinism says and believes in unconditional election, meaning God chooses who he chooses and it is not based on anything you do.
All right, that one, that's trigger-inducing for a lot of people, and I get it. It's kind of trigger-inducing for me as well. Number three is limited atonement, meaning that not everybody is going to be saved and not everybody can be saved.
"I" is irresistible grace, meaning this: it's irresistible. So when the grace of God, or when Jesus calls you, because God said that he elected you, when Jesus then calls you can't resist the call. You can't resist it. Then the fifth one is "P," meaning this: that once you're a believer in Christ, Calvinists believe you will not turn away. You will persevere to the end.
All right, here's the Arminian position, right? The Arminian position was birthed from Jacobus Arminius, right, and the Calvinist position from John calvin. Arminius, this is their perspective on TULIP. They don't believe in total depravity; they believe in partial depravity. Now, listen, I know this side really well because I spent the first 11 years of my life, the first lots of years of my life, as a part of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. So Brook and I, when we read the Bible, it's very hard for us to not read into the text this theological position we grew up in.
It's hard because we were inundated in that belief system. Are you with me? If you grew up as a Calvinist, in a Calvinist family, your family were Calvinist, they hold that position, it will be really hard when you read the Bible to not hold that position, and that position shape how you interpret the Bible. But they believe in partial depravity. In other words, they believe that you're kind of depraved, but you're not fully depraved. You are depraved enough to be in trouble, but you're not depraved enough that you couldn't grab a hold of God and choose him. That your mind's not so far gone that you can't choose him. You're partly dead, not fully dead. All right, so they believe in partial. They don't believe you're really a slave to sin. They think you are a slave to sin, but then you have, what is it called when you get out of prison for a couple days, you have to go back? What is that called? Furlough. That you're furloughed occasionally from sin. You're not a slave to sin; you're a partial slave to sin. All right, number two, they believe in conditional election.
They believe in conditional election. In other words, Calvinism includes the belief that election is unconditional, while Arminians believe it's conditional. Unconditional election is the view that God elects individuals to salvation based entirely on his will, not on anything inherently worthy in an individual. Conditional election, from the Arminian side, states that God elects individuals to salvation based on his foreknowledge of whether they will believe in him or not eventually. So let me try to break this down for you. This is that Calvinists believe that God elects who he pleases, he chooses who he pleases. Arminians believe that he looks ahead in the future and sees what you'll decide before the end, and then he elects you based on what you're going to do. All right, that's good enough. While Calvinists believe in limited atonement, Arminians believe in unlimited atonement. Calvinism sees the atonement as limited, while Arminians see it as unlimited. This is the most controversial of the five points.
We have Arminians and Calvinists that actually agree with each other on different points of this. This one is super, there's a lot of debate about this, a lot of debate.
There's a lot of Calvinists that do not hold this position, specifically on this point, limited atonement. Limited atonement is the belief that Jesus only died for the elect. Unlimited atonement is the belief that Jesus died for everyone, but that his death is not effectual until a person receives him by faith. All right, Calvinism includes a belief in what is called irresistible grace. Arminians believe you can resist God's grace.
All right, irresistible grace argues that when God calls a person to salvation, that person will inevitably come to salvation, period, that if God calls, we cannot resist the call. It's irresistible. Resistible grace states that God calls people to salvation, but that many people resist and reject him.
Calvinists hold to the perseverance of the saints. What Arminians hold to is conditional salvation. There's a condition to salvation, and that is that you live holy, and the moment you don't live holy, you're doomed. There's a condition: it's your holiness or your sanctification. Calvinism believes it is, there is, it is that we will persevere, period. You just will persevere. Perseverance of the saints refers to the concept that a person who is elected by God will persevere in faith and will not permanently deny Christ or turn away from him. Conditional salvation is the view that a believer in Christ can, of his or her own will, take God and then reject him, be saved and then decide, "Yet, I want to be that no more." So in the Calvinism versus Arminian, here's what you're wondering: which one's correct? It is interesting to note that in the diversity of the body of Christ, there are all sorts of mixtures of Calvinism and Arminianism.
There are what is referred to as five-point Calvinists and five-point Arminians, and at the same time there are three-point Calvinists, where they take three and they reject two, and two-point
Arminians, where they take two and reject three. Many believers arrive at some sort of mixture of the two views in life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:10
Ultimately, it is our view, it's my view, it is our view as a staff, that both systems fail in that they attempt to explain the unexplainable.
Okay, I will say this: because we are shaped by one of these positions, it affects how we read the Bible.
We should not be shaped by theological positions. We should take him at his word. All right, you've got to get in your Word, and you need to let the Word speak for itself. You're going to read some stuff and be like, "What? I don't like that."
And God goes, "So you're either going to take me at my word, or
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:20
you're going to try to form a theological position that makes you feel better about God."
God's not interested in you feeling any sort of way about him. He's God. He's not trying to be in the cool club. He's not trying to get picked on the playground. God is God, and it is what it is. All right, and we need to understand that there are things that just shape our belief. Everyone has been shaped by one of these two positions, and predispositions are formed. Listen, slowly, many of our opinions and the way that we think about God, and the way we think about believers, and the way we think about salvation, when we think about repentance, the way we think about works, those ideas and our dispositions are shaped over 20, 30, 40 years.
It takes time to get there. In other words, if it takes that much time to get there, then now is the time that you should begin reading the Word and let it form and do its work and be the truth for your life, because it takes time to get in and it takes time to get out. And the truth should be the truth regardless of what we've been told. It is amazing, because some of us will get into theological discussions when we've really never sought out the matter on our own.
We've been taught it in school, we've been taught it from our family, we've been taught it, but we haven't gone to see where the facts lie. How many of you think it would be a great idea for a lawyer to plead a case, he heard about something, heard about hearsay, and then formed an opinion, but never really went to go seek out the truth about what really happened, and brought no facts, no evidence, no nothing to the case? How long do you think he would be in that court case?
Not long. That's how Christians do life. We just believe what makes us feel good. That's why we listen to 150 podcasts, because we're just picking and choosing the parts that people are saying that we like, and we're forming our theological position based on that. Listen, it's not bad to listen to a podcast. It's bad to substitute that for the Word. That's bad. So what shapes your belief? Predispositions take time to develop.
Predispositions affect the way you read God's Word. It is the work of a good Bible scholar to allow the Word to stand on its own accord, period.
And honestly, we should hold our opinions to ourselves until we have sought out the matter. Until we've sought the matter out, we just maybe don't share it, because here's the thing: people are sharing their opinion before they've actually read the Bible and looked at what the Bible has to say about it. And you know that as you share that, you are forming predispositions in other people who love you, and you don't even really know, because you've never even looked. Like, get in your Word. You have a responsibility to seek these things out. So I want to understand, these are the two positions that shape how we think, how we live. I want to look at two foundational words that we see in here specifically that are attached and under the umbrella of Paul rebuking self-righteousness.
And I want us to look at two words that are shaped by these two common predispositions, and we've got to look to God's Word for them. So we're going to do that today.
Point 3Repentance is a gift, not a work
I'm going to do the work for you, and you should do some more, because there's hundreds more Scriptures, but let's talk about repentance first. It says in here in Romans 2:4, "Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Repentance. Now, we think all kinds of things about repentance. Repentance, this is, write this down and then work this out in your heart this week: repentance is not a work. I know that for sure. Repentance is not an act of the will. How do you know that, Shawn? Because I'm about to give you a bunch of Scriptures to prove that, but rather it is a gift from a gracious God. Now, if you are a self-righteous person and you're sitting in this thing and then he's going, "You guys won't repent, and you guys don't do good works," it begins to strike panic in our hearts as people who love God to think, "Oh no, I need to repent." But we're doing that in our will. Listen, repentance, in my opinion, repentance is the most miraculous thing that could happen on earth. It's miraculous. What I believe Paul is trying to help us understand in chapter 1 and chapter 2 is how good God is and how bad people are.
You will never be thankful for the goodness of God if you think you are God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:31
We have to see God, and to see him rightly we have to see him through a life that is broken and messed up and doesn't choose right and is bent towards sin, and we've got problems. So Paul goes through painstaking steps to get us to understand we without God are in trouble. But then right here he shifts for a moment and he begins to talk about things that do not find themselves in self-righteousness, but rather they find themselves in God being God. He's rebuking self-righteousness. So repentance can't be a self-righteous act.
It's not a work. It's a miraculous work of the grace of God. That's the thing: if it were a work, it would be self-righteousness. So first, what is repentance? Here's the actual definition. The word "repentance" in the Bible literally means the act of changing one's mind. Now, let's put the TULIP back up there and maybe just leave it there for a little bit, maybe the rest of it. If you're going to change your mind, and you're a Calvinist, right, and you believe in total depravity where you're totally dead, you can't change your mind unless God does it because you're dead. If you're an Arminian, you believe in partial depravity, you can change your mind, and what God does or doesn't do depends on what you do. So God is really a slave to your choices.
You are not a slave to his. It involves more than just merely turning away from sin. Easton's Bible dictionary says this, it includes in the definition of repentance, it says this: "In its fullest sense it is a term for a complete change of orientation, involving a judgment upon the past and a deliberate redirection of a person's future." I love that, because if you change your mind, it changes your life.
If your mind's changed, it changes what you do. If your mind's changed...
The Bible also tells us that true repentance will result in a change of actions. Where do you get that, Shawn? Luke 3:8–14. Write it down.
Luke 3:8–14. The Bible says that true repentance, so there's a false repentance, true repentance will result in a change of actions. Another place that says
That is Acts 3:19. In summarizing his ministry,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:04
Paul declares this, I preach, in Acts 26:20, "I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds." In other words, when you repent, your life changes. If your life doesn't change, you didn't repent.
You just didn't. That's in the Bible. That's facts. Deeds come along. Deeds don't... Deeds are the evidence that you truly repented. You don't do good deeds so that you can repent, but they do follow repentance. In other words, here's two words: repentance and faith cannot be separated.
In the world today and in church today, we tend to separate these two words, but repentance and faith
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:58
can be understood this way: as two sides of one coin.
You can no more take the tails off of a quarter than you can take faith out of repentance. That help? Now, what do we know of faith? We've talked about it for years. What do we know of faith? We know that God gives faith. That's biblical. It's all over that God gives it, right? This is a miraculous thing. Now, here's what we need to do. Here's the work of reading the Bible. The work of reading the Bible is not listening to words like "faith," "repentance," and "works"
And figuring out how that applies to us. The point of reading the Bible is taking repentance, works, and faith and moving it to who it should go to, which is God, that these things show the goodness of God. He's good. Paul is trying to help us understand he's good. He gives faith. He calls us to repentance and changes our mind that we may do so.
The Bible tells us that true repentance will result in a change of actions, and we will see changes. Repentance and faith can be understood as two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to place your faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior without first changing your mind about your sins and about who Jesus is and what he's done. I'm going to stop here for just a moment, and I want us to consider how Paul is using the word "repentance" here. Paul is not using the word "repentance" as something we do every time we sin, because you don't. It's more of a global term. Here's the easy way to say this: repentance is a global term; confession is an individual one. John, we just read in 1 John when we went through 1 John, that John says we will sin, but when we sin, we've already changed our mind as believers, that we don't like sin. So when we sin, we feel conviction immediately, and he says confess that sin before the Lord, because you've already changed your mind about sin in general. So we in the church take the word "repentance" and we try to apply it to every little sin. So every time we stand, we go, "I repent." You've already repented. If you've repented, you do that once and your mind has changed and you turn around and you go another direction. You might still sin, but you don't need to continue to repent. Let me put it this way: when I was growing up, there were people in the church who would come down to the altar and get saved again every week. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, when you get saved, you're saved. All right? When you get saved, you're saved. The Bible says that he puts you in his hand, he covers you with the Holy Spirit, he puts the Holy Spirit in you, he covers you with the grace of God, and he seals up the Holy Spirit in you where it can't get out until the day of redemption.
So repentance is something where we decide, by the grace of God, that God calls us and he, God, changes our mind on the things, on sin and him.
God changes our mind and he gives us faith to believe in him. Now, we confess our sin, but we don't continue to have to repent. Repentance, in other words, is not a work we do to earn salvation. No one, and I repeat, no one can repent and come to God unless God pulls that person to himself.
Now, I have a Scripture for that. It is John 6:44. Let us take a look at it. You might need to turn there. I'm going to give you a moment, because I don't have it on the slide. Sorry, but give you a moment. John 6:44.
Everybody say "got it." Say "I got it." Everybody who doesn't, say "help." All right, good. John 6:44 says, "No one," everybody say "no one," "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
Repentance is turning away from sin and turning towards God and coming to him. No one can repent unless God grants repentance. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a miraculous event, that when we read about repentance, we see self-righteous people trying to apply repentance in their own strength, but we see that really repentance is the goodness of God calling people to himself. All of salvation, including repentance and faith, is the result of God drawing us because he loves us. He opens our eyes. Isn't he good? And he changes our heart because he's good. God is long-suffering, and in his long-suffering he still calls us and leads us to repentance. We see this in 2 Peter 3:9, and we see his kindness in Romans 2:4, which we read this morning, a kindness that we should not presume upon or take advantage of.
Point 4True repentance bears fruit
Now, this repentance is granted to us by God. It is a miraculous thing. And number two, repentance unto salvation results in works.
So if you want to have assurance of your salvation, which is granted by God, the way you have that is by seeing your fruits, the deeds. This is why we'll be judged according to our deeds, our works. It says, "He will render to each one according to his works." Why? Because that is the evidence of true repentance. Not a person who comes and prays a prayer every Sunday so they can go out and live how they want through the week, but the evidence of someone who is saved is someone who is bearing fruit and does good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. Even God prepares those good works.
It is impossible to truly change your mind without causing a change in action. In the Bible, repentance results in a change in behavior. That is why John the Baptist called people to produce, in Matthew 3:8, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."
Now, how many of you know that a tree no more produces fruit than a believer produces fruit in his own strength? A tree doesn't squeeze out a fruit by its will. It produces it because it was made to produce it. And when you were born in Christ, there are fruit that you should produce, not because you push it out of your life, but because you just manifest it, because that's what you were created to do. Are you with me? Matthew 3:8 says this, I'm going to say it again, John the Baptist said, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." A person who's truly repented of his sins and exercised faith in Christ will give evidence of a changed life. Here's some verses you can read: 2 Corinthians 5:17. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
Galatians 5:19. Repentance brings fruit. 5:19–23 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Why? Because those are not good works. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Repentance brings change, the kind of change that we're comfortable to stand before God in the end, because our repentance is true by the fruits we see in our life.
Now, let's stop here for a second. One of the number one things that Arminians and Calvinists, that shape their perspectives, is how they view free will, and free will comes into repentance and faith and works and all those things, right?
I want to stop here for a moment as we think about repentance, that it's granted from God, and I want to propose to you today, and hopefully what I say now does not cause you to not listen the rest of the sermon, because the second half is really important. I want to say something, don't freak out. I believe that we have a will and we make choices in our day. I do not believe that God forces us to lose our keys and forces us to come to church and forces us to do those things.
Those choices are ours. But our will is not ultimately free. It's not.
Why do you say that, Shawn? Here's my position: there are two classifications of every human on the earth in the Bible. The first classification is you are a slave to sin. So if you're a slave to sin, although you make choices in your day, your will is not ultimately fully free. You are a slave to that sin in your life.
There is no, and because we listened to 1 John, there is no in-between. There is no gray area. You're either a slave to God or you're a slave to sin. So if God then grants repentance, you're no longer a slave to sin, but he says you become a slave to God. And so even as a believer, your will is not ultimately free, because now you're his slave. Are you with me today? The question isn't how can I operate as an individual without God, without the devil, and be totally free.
The only person, the only person in the entire universe, galaxy, in the heavens that is completely free is God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:05
All of us are... How many of you know that when you were in sin, you were a slave to a master, it just had you? And then how many of you know when you came to Christ, he granted you repentance? How many of you know that you could not do anything there? I've had conversations in small groups and around tables recently, people saying this: "how could so-and-so ever walk away from God? I could never." I've tried to in my anger, and I just couldn't, because you're a slave to one thing or the other. Now, how you view the will of man shapes how you view repentance, because it is either something you do according to your will or it is something that God grants according to his. And really, honestly, the issue of will in people's lives really looks like Jacob wrestling with God on top of a mountain. Arminians believe the final and ultimate cause of salvation is not the Holy Spirit, it is not divine grace, but it is merely my own free will choosing it. That's the Arminian's belief. I'm not being disparaging, that's their belief. I don't believe such a thing exists anywhere in the universe except with the will of God. It's my position, and that position, I believe I can back up irrefutably with Scripture. Jesus speaks to why Judas did not believe on him. John 6:64 says this, "Jesus knew from the beginning who it was that believed and who it was that would betray him." This is why, "I said to you, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." That's Scripture. No one can believe unless God grants him the faith. Let's read it again. John 6:44, "No one can
Come to me unless the Father
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:47
who sent me draws him." Let's say it again: no one can come. Everybody say "come." That's the gift, that he causes you to come. That's the gift. "And I will raise him up on the last day." Listen, nudges do not save people.
And what is granted as a gift here is our ability to come. And so why is this important, Shawn? This seems like semantics. It's very important, because if you do this in your strength, by your will, by your volition, by your self-righteousness, by your acts, by your works, we don't glory in the goodness of God, but rather we glory in the goodness of us, man.
"God, I bet you're so pumped that I chose you and that I came. I bet you're happy about that." And he's like, "Dude, you couldn't even have done it if not for me." God grants people to come. Let me give you a couple Scriptures, and they may have these. 2 Timothy 2:24–26. They do, look at you guys. Let's read this together.
"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome," this is Paul talking to Timothy about how to lead the church, "and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness." Notice there that he corrects them. Notice that Paul gives them permission to correct them. Just doesn't give them permission to be nasty about it. People hate being corrected, but God put people in your life to correct you because he loves you. Just those who are correcting, just don't be a jerk about it. All right, "God may perhaps," everybody listen to me, don't miss this, "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth."
Who grants it? Not man's choice, not man's free will, not man's self-volition. You mean man doesn't do it? Listen, this isn't about what you get.
This isn't saying God grants them heaven because they repent. God grants them repentance. It is a gift of God. Listen, you can read chapter 2 one of two ways. Every time you get to a thing like repentance,
You can make it about you or you can make it about God and see the goodness and the glory of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:54
You can make it about you and see the goodness and glory of you, or you can make it about God and see the goodness and glory of God. Notice that he's talking to people who make it about them. Notice it, and don't let it be lost on you that he throws in trigger words that we have made about us too in the church, and sandwiches them in our self-righteousness and saying there's a right way this happens and a wrong way this happens. The wrong way is making repentance about you, an act of the will.
And let me tell you what that'll get you: eternal hell. That's what he's saying. And then he says works come for those who truly repent, but not the kind of works you people do that's in your own strength, but the type of fruit that you bear just by being made new. This is important, and what it does is it helps us stop glorifying us and it helps us become less that he might be more. You know, we come to the worship service and say, "Oh, magnify the Lord with me." We sing these worship songs, but in our life, then we open the Bible after singing these worship songs about magnifying the Lord, and we do a lot of "me-ology." When we read in there, a lot of "me." Narcissist Jesus. And then we begin to do things like this: we make it all about us.
And I thought we just sang a song about magnifying the Lord. Now we're magnifying us in our Bible reading. I'm so confused. Are you with me today? This is about him and his goodness. Listen, you will become more and more burdened every Sunday if you make it about you, and there will come a point you can no longer sit in services and hear God's Word, because the weight of you doing this in your own strength is insurmountable, to the degree that it will crush you to an oil spot on the ground. And a sign of whether or not you see this as God's business can be seen in the effects on your heart when you walk out of this service. I cannot do the interpretation for you. You either see it one way or the other.
There are people who come in every week. There are some who come and they feel encouraged, and there are some who come and feel like they just don't know if they want to be a part of this. It's the same sermon, folks. It's the same sermon. And what I believe I want to do today is I want to help us take things that Paul talks about and start applying it to God, not to ourselves, that we might see his goodness. Acts 5:31 says, "God exalted him at the right hand as leader and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." Notice here that Jesus' job is not just to give forgiveness, but his job is to give repentance. And he gives repentance according to those that God has elected.
That's the Bible. I'm not saying anything other than the Bible. So this idea that repentance is an act of the will is frustrating hearts in the church.
Why? Why is that? Because we are trying to manufacture something and never really be made new. We're trying to manufacture something that should make us new and change our mind, but we're not made new and our mind isn't changed because we're doing it according to our will and not according to a gift granted by God. And we stay in the church and stay frustrated because repentance hasn't truly happened. It's just self-righteous repentance.
Nothing will be more frustrating than preaching at a car every week to bear apples, and that car, it was a car that had eyes and a mouth and a heart, and he would talk and say, "I'm so frustrated." I don't know where that came from. That was pretty funny though. That was funny, because I can't bear fruit. I'm not wired to bear fruit. Cars don't bear fruit. And the entire Bible is saying, right, you have to be made new.
Only trees bear fruit, but there are a bunch of cars in the church trying to bear fruit.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:29
You can't bear fruit unless he grants repentance and you're made new. Acts 11: 18 says, "When they heard this they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, 'Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.'"
Who does it? God does it, ladies and gentlemen. God does it. God does it. It is a gift that comes from God. Why?
Because he loves you, and even though he's had forbearance with your sinfulness and your evilness and your rejection of him and your idol worship and your non-loving position, and he forbears with you and he grants repentance anyway. Praise God's holy name, because not everybody is that good.
Notice the position here in the Bible, and I'm going to give you Scripture for this. So the way this works is repentance is granted by God. I think we have enough Scripture there for that. There's hundreds more. But repentance is granted by God, it's not an act of the will, and also belief is, because some of you are going, "Well, it's people who believe, it's people who believe that are saved, so I'm going to have to debate you, Shawn. It's really about belief that saves us." Well, let's look at the order of this, because repentance comes first and belief comes second, because how can you believe unless your mind is first changed? Are you with me here today?
And you totally see God different than you used to, and you totally see sin different than you used to. Here it is, here's the best Scripture: 1 John 5:1 says this, "Everyone,"
Everybody say "everyone," "who believes that Jesus is the Christ." Now, here's what we do. Here's what we do: we take belief, when we're reading this Scripture, we take belief. We can either apply belief to God or we can apply belief to us. Now, many of us will go, "We just got to believe harder." Well, that's self-righteous.
That's an act of the will. You're trying to apply a spiritual thing to carnal man. You're saying it's your belief that gets you saved, it's what you do in the will. "I'm going to believe." "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ..." I believe.
What's that movie where they say, "I believe something"? What they hope will come true will come true, and it doesn't come true because they didn't believe hard enough. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ," everybody say "has," "has been born of God."
Not is born, not will be born, has been born. Why? Because belief comes after repentance. If you believe, it's because you've
Already been born again through repentance, because God granted it and God gave it. "And everyone who loves the
Pastor Shawn Gray · 55:55
Father loves whoever has been born of him."
Self-willed faith does not bring about new birth. It's just the opposite: the new birth brings about faith.
Faith is therefore not a result of self-determination, but is there because of the new birth. Remember, God grants faith.
God grants faith and portions it that we have enough faith to do everything he prepared in advance for us to do.
Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will." I thought we had free will.
Not ultimately. See, not ultimately.
"The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will." So then we learned that repentance comes before belief, and we learned that faith happens as a product of belief. We learned today that repentance is a gift of God, where he calls some, and the gift is that we come, which is repentance. So now when we read this, let's read it. I'll do one more thing, another word that's in here. So we know about repentance. Another word that's in here is this, all the way down to verse 6: "He will render to each," he, God, will render to each "according to his works." Let's talk about works for a few seconds. I'm going to give you one Scripture and then you've got to go figure this out
Point 5Good works flow from being made new
Yourself in regards to works. Ephesians 2:8–9 is a very popular Scripture, and it should be, because it's good. Quoted by people who are like, "you're saved by faith and grace alone, and we don't have to do works." That's what they'll say: we're saved by faith and grace alone and you don't have to do good works. Just in case you didn't know, verse 6 says you're judged by your works. So you have to do works, but you just don't have to do works to be saved. You do works and it's evidence that you were saved. So here's where they get this: they read 8 and 9, they don't read verse 10. "For by grace you have been saved through faith." How do we know that our works, faith come? It's granted by God. "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Notice, by grace, that's God's grace. "You have been saved." Who does the saving? God saves. "Through faith." Who gives the faith? God gives it. This is a universal action done by God and God alone. "And this is not your own doing." In case you just didn't get it, in the first part where he just kind of peppers it down,
God does all this. "This is not your own doing; it is the gift of
Pastor Shawn Gray · 59:15
God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Repentance is not a work. Belief is not a work. Faith is not a work. It is a gift of God that he gives to the rebellious.
It's the gift of God that he gives to sinners. It is a gift. It is the most miraculous thing done in the world. We lay hands and we pray that God would heal people of cancer.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no greater healing than to come to new life in Christ. That is the greatest miracle of all.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 59:39
Where is the prayer, laying hands on men that they may come to God? That we should be praying more, because this body withers and fades away, but our soul goes on forever. We don't pray for repentance. We don't pray for people to have faith. We don't lay hands and pray for people to come to God, because we think it's about us and not about him. We don't consult the great God-gifter for these things. We just hope that the person decides by the volition of their will to come out of sin and to go to God and to start hating sin and start bearing fruit on their own accord. Listen, it's a miracle when it happens. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works." He says it again, "so that no one may boast." About this. Then verse 10, it goes on, how do you know if you've repented and God's granted repentance to you? How do you know that God's granted faith? How do you know that God's granted belief? How do you know that? "For we are created new in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." The question today, and over the last several weeks, is what are the good works that the Bible talks about here? Here's my answer: if you're worrying about what good works you have to do, you're not going to be doing them, because you're a new creation, you're going to be doing them in your own volition, and that's not what God intended. So in other words, a believer can make it from God granting repentance into faith into belief, to turn around and to begin coming to God, and never know what a good work is and still do it, because it's something we do naturally when God has changed us. Do not be guilty today of going, "Oh, good works. He judges us by that, works. He tests us by that. What are the good works so that I can go do them?" No. Don't worry about them, because if you're a new believer in Christ and you've repented, he's granted that, and you really are a true believer in Christ, you'll do them, never knowing what the list is, because you just produce it, because he's made you, took you from a car and made you a tree. This is a terrible analogy, but, you know, my professor would say, "No." But they ain't here and you can't grade it, so up yours, nose with a rubber hose, right? "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Notice this too, that we hear an idea of what good works are, but we don't know what good works he created for me to do specifically.
So a list ain't going to help you, and the only one who knows it is God, who prepared it in advance, and the only one who's going to push those things he's prepared in advance out of your life is a God who saves you, that he may do that. None of this is done by you. And notice that he is speaking to Jews who are self-righteous, who take things like repentance and works and all of these things and belief and faith and try to make it about what they do, and the apostle Paul is going, you miss out on seeing the goodness of God, because this is God who does these things. If you're burdened today, if you're burdened today with the weight of your life in total rebellion to God, if you're burdened, God says, "Come." He calls people to him. Listen how he does it. Listen how he does it. "Oh, so it's just this ethereal thing that we, you know, hear the echoes of heaven and it's in my heart, I get a goosebump." I get a goosebump call. What is it? How do we know that we have been called? Listen, at the very beginning of this, at the very beginning of this, I see what he says. I'm trying to find out where it is. Maybe it's 18. Here it is, verse 16, chapter 1 in Romans, Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it," and it alone, not your predisposition, but the gospel, "is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes," where we know belief comes after repentance, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek."
In other words, we were called and commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:05:21
Why do we preach the gospel? Because when people hear the gospel, only the gospel has the power to save. In other words, let me say it to you this way: God calls people to repentance through the proclamation of the gospel.
This is why it's so pivotal today that you don't form your opinions by predispositions of men, but you allow the gospel to shape your ideas of who God is. That way, when you talk about the gospel, people are saved by hearing it. That's how he does it. He uses the gospel to draw men to himself.
59:50
47:38
1:07:10
59:54
43:23
58:38
1:01:23
1:01:52
55:00
59:37
1:06:11Now playing
56:45
48:39
1:05:37
53:34
53:13
46:18
46:48