Romans 10:9–13Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 10. We are making our way through Romans. It has been, how many weeks has it, how many weeks has it been? How many months has it been? Has it been a year yet? A year, two months. A year and two months. We're halfway through, and so we have about a year left. Is it quite a year, Miss Ebony? Is it going to be a year or is it quite close? From the summer, from the summer. Okay, so we're close, getting there. How many of you, it has been enriching, right? It has been a process, but it's been enriching. And one of the books of the Bible that is really not dealt with as much as all the others, and yet it is doctrinally sound, it is doctrinally foundational, and it is very important. This morning my assignment is Romans chapter 10. And I'm looking at today, regardless of the exact numbers, I'm looking at, because I have to go back a little bit, 9 through 13. All right, so let's jump to verse 9 in chapter 10. It says this: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now that's a mouthful there. There is a lot happening there. It seems simplistic enough, does it not? But we want to unpack that today, or at least I will attempt to, by using other scriptures where we see these words belief and heart and salvation. And so we're going to venture out today, and I'm going to, I believe that, well, I don't believe, I know belief here is not just simply an intellectual understanding of something. It is much more. That's why
Introduction
Belief here is attached to the heart. And when we look at belief here, there are four things, maybe more, but four things that I identify when we look out in other parts of the Bible and we see belief being used, and salvation then ensuing, and repentance a part of that. We see and we learn belief is actually four different things taking place at the same time. I'm going to do my best to explain that. So as simplistic as it seems, it is way more difficult than you might imagine. All right, to understand: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, boom, you're saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all. Notice here, Lord, the Lord is not the Lord of people who make him Lord.
He's Lord of all. It's not dependent on you embracing him, he's still Lord of all.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:17
You can reject him when you hear the gospel. You can reject him with your life, you can reject him with your heart, but he is still Lord of all.
That's important today, because you don't make him something he already is and forever will be.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:31
That's really important, and so we need to change that out of our vernacular, or the way we talk, or the way we kind of mention these things. For the Scripture, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. Who's excited about that? For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. However, we know in Matthew that there are some who verbally call on the name of the Lord, think they're saved, and go to hell. This is concerning, because it seems as if there's a conflicting message from what has been preached by Paul up to this point in Romans. However, if you look closely enough, you do not see a conflicting message, but it is important to put it in right context. So here's the question that I asked that kind of helped me in my personal study, because I believe this: I believe questions are the scythe that help us cut through the mystery of Scripture. All right, question: what does a true saving belief really include? If we're saved because we believe, what does saving belief include? We can see here that it is more than just intellectual assent. Now I have been saying quite a lot lately that we need to do more of turning our brain on and less of turning it off in regard of encountering the Lord, or talking to the Lord, or listening to the things of the Lord, right? We have gotten into this behavior and attitude in the church that it's more about emotional assent than intellectual assent, and so to emotionally ascend, then we turn off our brain, that we can just feel him. Encounters are attached to feelings, not thinking. And so this is a New Age concept, actually. This is not new for the church didn't come up with this, it is not a whole Holy Spirit thing.
It is a New Age thing, for you to turn your brain off that you can encounter. And so it is important today, in a generation where we don't have many critical thinkers being raised up in our homes, today in a generation where media would like to tell you what to believe and keep you from thinking on your own, it would like to form you into what, instead of God forming you into what he wants you to be, the world wants to form you into what it wants you to be.
And we have turned our brain off and we have acquiesced our thinking to the world and not to God. And so the gospel, although it is not
Point 1Saving faith begins in the mind
Only and merely an intellectual assent, it begins there, amen. It begins in the mind. This is why you can grow up in church and you can hit college years and you can encounter the gospel in a way you have not yet encountered the gospel. What is it? You just simply came, but you didn't think the message was for you. You thought it was for your parents. You came and you listened and you participated, and maybe you even came to youth group and you played some games and you hung out, but you were distracted by the girl in row three across from you, and you didn't notice that the message being preached was not just for everyone else, it was for you too. But there was something that captured your ear at some point of coming to church and simply attending and going through the motions and it never really capturing you, that you listened one time, you heard, and it impacted your life. It meant something to you. It struck you, and it starts with your thinking. So in a generation where we're trying to turn our mind off to have an encounter, the gospel says it is requisite that our mind engages the gospel for salvation. But are we merely saved because of the way we think? No. Paul then moves from the gospel impressing our thinking to affecting our heart. So although it begins in the mind, it moves to the heart. This is how seed can hit but never take root. Are you with me? Because it hits the mind but never gets to the heart. It hits the mind but is plucked up before it takes grip in the heart. There are some scriptures in the Bible that actually refer to your heart as soil that pushes out what is put in, pushes specifically life out of what is put in. So there are several things that are involved when we talk about salvation. Paul is trying to help us not only value the thinking, not only value intellect, not only value reason, but he's saying it's more than that. What is he saying this, and to what audience is he saying this to? That's a good question, Shawn. He's saying this to Pharisees, or Jews, people who valued intellect. They knew, they memorized Scripture, they knew the law. As a matter of fact, it was given to them. It was given to them and only to them, and so they valued it enough to memorize it, all 600-and-something of them, laws. They valued them, they knew them, they could recite them. They intellectually assented to that degree, but something was amiss, because they did not know him. They were not saved, because intellectual reasoning does not save you alone. It is the beginning, it is how the gospel comes to you, but you can have intellectual reason and still not have faith to believe. Are you with me? All right, a couple of words being used here that we really need to make sense of. Faith is one of the most elusive words in our culture. We have turned faith into some tool by which we use to force God's hand in life.
Faith is a gift. It is not a tool wielded for your good pleasure, nor has it ever been.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:24
Faith is a gift for belief. That's what it is, faith. So they had intellectual reason, but they had no faith in their heart to believe. Why? Because God had not given it to them. This is why the apostle Paul is praying and beseeching the Lord that he would give faith to his people. Why pray the prayer if God doesn't give it? Why pray the prayer if it's merely you intellectually presenting it in such a fashion that they will be convinced? Why go to prayer, why not go to preaching?
Now we know preaching is involved. That's how the gospel comes to the world, and it is through the preaching that we are saved, but it is not preaching that saves, it is faith that saves. That's probably a smart idea, taking my cup away from me, for I kick it everywhere. If all right, so are you with me today? There's something amiss. Although intellectual, it is not merely, salvation is not merely, listen to me now, not merely intellectual assent. It's part of it, but it should not be sacrificed on the altar of feelings and emotions. Are you with me today? So although it is not only intellectual, it is partly intellectual, but it is not only intellectual. Okay, did I say that enough? So you don't just throw intellect into the trash and reason into the trash and all of that. True saving faith starts with the mind, because after all, what we're dealing with is the truth, which this generation and world and the world says there is no absolute truth. Truth is something that begins in the mind. Why do you think the world wants to turn the mind of your children off? So that the world can get your children to not think there's absolute truth. It's been successful. And some of you are indoctrinating your children by giving them devices that indoctrinate them too soon. Some of you parents don't need them, you need to go to a flip phone. And the reason you need that is because you've been indoctrinated by the world. You should take inventory of that. I know it's cool to be cool, but it's not cool to be dead forever, eternally, because you would rather be cool and sacrifice your eternal life on the altar of actually an apple that has a bite out of it. Are you with me? I mean, I have one, so I mean, that's how I'm illustrating it to you. But does this have you, or does God have you? If you can take inventory of your, by the way, I saw a video the other day by somebody who was not a believer, Bulldog, in case you were wondering. If you don't know who Bulldog is, congratulations, it's better for you that you don't. But he was in a video showing people sitting there like this on their phones in the restaurant, in their car, in their home, and he said, "Isn't this a form of prayer? Look at the prayer position." A non-believer saying that. It is amazing how we go to prayer to the world before we go to prayer for God. The position is actually very interesting. What are you being formed by, his Word or this? I can tell you the answer to that, because look at how much time you spend on your Bible app, or consider the time you spend in your Bible, and then look at the actual time in your settings and how much you spend on your phone. I'm afraid that the world has us more than we would like to admit, and quite specifically, you know what it's going for? The gateway of truth, your mind.
Because if the world can have your mind, it can have your soul.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:20
God knows this. The apostle Paul knows this, because he's saying it is the entry point to your heart. It is where the gospel starts. Where do we gather this from, the Scripture, Shawn? Because it's all cool, it's great that you have ideas, we really don't care about your ideas. Where do you gather this from, Scripture? Romans 6:17. I wrote 5:17, but at least I remembered intellectually, thank God, that it's 6:17. And so if it's 5:17 and I'm wrong, and what I read does not sound like 6:17, then go to 5:17, and it must be that because it's one of those two. It says this, 6:17: "But God be thanked that..." And I'm going to read this from the King James because I like one of the words it uses in here. Okay, so I'm sorry for the "ye," I apologize for the "ye." All right: "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart," not adopted, "you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Thank be to God, because you were once servants of sin, but now you have, and you used to obey from the heart, from where the form of doctrine which was delivered to you. This is a heart issue, and something has to change your heart. Something has to radically change your heart, because you were servants of sin and you obeyed from the heart, sin, and that doctrine which was delivered you. Paul is saying that Roman Christians of that day were once servants of sin, and then he goes on, you are no longer the servant of sin, you become quite different because the truth was delivered to you. Why? What does that mean? It means this: you heard the preaching of the gospel. We're going to, later in the next verse, next week, we're going to hear about preaching: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." How can we know if we do not have a preacher? They've been changed by the preaching of the gospel. The facts concerning our Lord and their meaning were put before them, and obviously that is something to which one listens with his mind, gets to the heart, but it starts in the mind. And we were told constantly in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostles would do this: they would go to the synagogue and the Scripture says that they would reason. Everybody say "reason." Reason. They would reason out of the Scriptures to them. Where is reasoning happening? In our mind. That's where it begins. That's the apostles' approach, that's what preaching starts at. It compels one's mind, it reasons with our thinking, reason to prove, to allege, to demonstrate, or to argue. That's the actual word in Greek. He would, Paul specifically would take Old Testament scriptures and the prophets and he would show the people the meaning of them. He would reason with them. Now all this is a process impressed on someone's mind. The first thing that's involved is the mind, the intellect, to understand. Although this seems quite clear, it's not clear to everyone. How do you know that, Shawn? Because there are many churches and many people, even in our midst today, that would rather turn off the mind and engage the emotions. Some of us don't come, some of us go to work all week long, even when we're sick. Yeah, I'm sorry about what's about to happen here. We go to work all week long although we're sick, but we skip church on Sunday. It starts here. It's really a problem of who you think is Jehovah Jireh, your provider, and the evidence of this decision of you sacrificing church on the altar of you going to work sick. I'm not saying come to church sick. I'm saying don't go to work sick and then skip church because you're sick. Are you with me? Because the reality is you trust more for your job to provide for you than God to provide for you. That's why you'll show up to work and you forsake God. Okay, there's no amount of reasoning that can make sense of this. It is nonsensical, yet we do it. And out of our heart, what our heart truly believes we see with our life. What our heart truly trusts in we see manifested in our behaviors. Are you with me?
You cannot hide what your heart believes. Eventually you will be found out.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:07
They don't bother to listen, really. They just come for a feeling, and there are people today who come for a feeling. That's why when worship changes people leave. Are you with me? Because they're not here to worship God, they're here to worship, and the worship they worship is not the worship in the Bible, because when the feelings go, the people go. That's a problem. It's a problem. They just want to come for a feeling, and so then in part we sacrifice truth on the altar of feelings and sensations, and truth is not paramount. And as a matter of fact, this is how you can have a wolf or a false teacher in your midst leading you for generations and that being allowed in the church, because we don't come for truth, so we don't call people out when they don't preach truth, because we really came for an emotional experience. We don't care what the pastor says, we don't care if it's true, I just came for a feeling, baby. I just want a feeling.
Feelings will get you to hell quicker than anything else.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:33
Feelings will indoctrinate you as a parent so that you indoctrinate your children in such a fashion that, and I say this with all gentleness and kindness in the world, you indoctrinate your children to go to hell. And it's serious business. Are you with me today? I'm not being judgy, I'm not being hard, I'm not being a Southern gospel preacher. I'm saying this is urgent, and it's time that we take seriously the things of God, and we understand that the most important thing for your children is truth, regardless of how it makes them feel. Okay, now let's stop here for a second, because everything Paul is saying to the Jews is immensely offensive. For some of you today who think that Romans is offensive, it's nothing compared to how offensive it was to the Jews. Some of you are like, man, Shawn, when are we going to get out of the offensive and when are we going to get into the encouraging part of it? The crazy part is offense is encouraging when you view it rightly, as it should be viewed. But you cannot take the offense out of truth. Okay, it's important, because as a believer, if you hold closely to truth, you will be offensive. And the problem is today in the church, we'd rather be PC than truthful. We want to create a platform by which people can live in the gray and escape hell that doesn't exist. If you indoctrinate people in the gray, they will still go to hell. The Scripture is black and it is white, it is truth and it is lies, it is light and it is dark. Are you with me today? It's extreme language. There is no provision for gray areas, yet we preach in the gray and we hope we can somehow or another limp people into the kingdom, or sneak them in. Listen, there are no open borders to the kingdom. Are you with me today? Well, Shawn, that's a little bit political.
There are no open borders to the kingdom.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:12
You don't just hang out there and oopsy daisy, you're in there. You don't just wander across the creek and boom, you're there. It don't happen that way. You have to get access in there. There are mandates. There is only one way to be saved, and Paul is describing it right here. It is not, listen, for you Jews, it is not only your intellect, it is a heart issue. It is a heart issue. Today we have many altar calls. We ask people to proclaim something and to declare something and to confess something. We ask them to publicly declare that they believe in their mind that Jesus is Lord, and many people do, and they come and they love having their brain tickled and they love theology and they love that, and they declare with their intellectual understanding that they know who Christ is and that they believe, but that does not save, because intellectually alone will still get you to hell. Paul moves on and says this is also a heart issue.
The mind is the gateway that gets to the heart, but it is not the heart of the issue.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:25
Okay, the heart is also involved in saving faith. Another way of looking at this is that the whole person is included in saving faith, not just the mind of a man, but the heart of the man, the feet of the man, the life of the man, the breath of the man, the all of the man or woman. When I say man today, I mean everyone, mankind. When a man becomes, when a person becomes a Christian, every part of him is involved, not just his mouth. Oh, that's good, that's good, but also his heart. What good is it to be in a marriage when you have your wife telling you she loves you, but with her life she demonstrates she hates you? What kind of marriage is that? Who wants to wake up to that? Who wants to come home to that?
Reverse it. If you're a woman and the man professes he loves you but he doesn't demonstrate it with his life, how many of you in time would begin to question the confession? The confession, although integral in salvation, confession alone does not save. Notice here the compiling list of things. It is intellectual, it is a heart issue, it is confession, but it is all of these. So it starts in the mind, that
Point 2Conviction means truth comes with power
Would be one point. You could put number two. We see here conviction. Conviction. Now the word conviction, most of you are thinking in your mind, and that's where it starts, most of you are thinking well, it's when I feel guilty for something. Oh, that's it in part. That's it in part. We don't only see, so what is conviction? We don't only see the mind is involved in saving faith, but we also see that the heart, man believes with the heart. Man believes. In other words, we see here an element of conviction. Conviction means that truth has come to us with power. Okay, so truth comes to the mind, it starts there, and then truth comes with power, because you can hear a truth, understand it intellectually, but it not have power in your life. Are you with me? That's where conviction comes in. That is the next step. Now I've done my best to try to understand all of these things that happen when we talk about this small thing, confess and believe in your heart. What is it really saying? Let's look at the progress of it. We hear it intellectually, we are convicted, meaning truth has not just come to us intellectually, but now it has come to us with power. Let us consider the different party lines that we're beginning to see rise up today that will soon be coming to debates, and we will listen to a member of the party that we don't belong to and to which we don't agree. I mean, you know that's true. You can apprehend what someone is saying intellectually, but it still not touch you, and what they have spoken, although intellectually you understand it, that truth that they proclaimed did not come with power. It is not convicting. It doesn't, in other words, convince you. It doesn't move you. You find it interesting, you could follow him quite intelligently and you can tell what he said, but it's nothing more than that. Some approach the gospel this way, some encounter the gospel this way. This is why every time the gospel is preached, people are not saved, because the truth has not come in power. The truth has come, but it has not come in power to convince, to convict. You haven't been caused to change your position from one party to the other. In other words, it left you exactly where you were with some more information. You received only an intellectual understanding of what they were saying. There are many people who listen to the gospel like this. It is entirely possible for a man to have intellectual understanding and possible enjoyment in that, but not do anything in the way of conviction. However, when the heart is involved, we always see an element of conviction. It's always there, it's forever there. When the heart is involved, conviction comes with power. In other words, the truth not only brings awareness, not only reasons, but it changes us. This is why fruit is important when evaluating whether someone is a believer, because conviction is requisite and conviction changes us. When you're convicted of something, you will change your mind on that thing. Those who have been militantly opposing the truth begin to query whether that stance is right any longer. It brings discomfort. The Scripture does, conviction does, conviction brings discomfort. I've heard it time and time again, "Man, that message was so convicting." You know how many people I've seen run out the doors of a church within a couple of weeks of being convicted to get away from being uncomfortable?
Discomfort will test the truth of your confession.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:44
It'll let us know whether or not you have sacrificed the intellect and the mind on the altar of emotions, and whether your confession is true. But it brings discomfort and we begin to be stirred and we begin to feel unsettled. How many of you have ever been, either reading the Bible in your house or hearing it preached on Sunday morning or maybe even listening to a podcast, and just felt unsettled? Feeling, amen, right? It's unsettling. Yay! But God is moving you to a place that you could not go on your own. He's unsettling you from your firm stance, he's changing you. So first, first the mind, second conviction, third repentance, and then there's going to be four parts of repentance, because repentance is important. Conviction is not repentance. I don't have time to talk about this very long, because it is possible to be convicted and not repent. Conviction leads to
Point 3Repentance starts with a changed mind
Repentance. Did you know that it's possible to be convicted without repentance? So, okay, Shawn, what is repentance? It means several things, and here's the four points that I want to talk about regarding this thing. When we see repentance playing out, number one of the essential things you see in repentance is you change your mind. This stems from the Latin word which means to think again. The Greek word is metanoia. But let us remember that to think again is not only intellectual here. For it to be repentance, the heart is involved. Are you with me? Because with repentance comes salvation, so the heart is still involved.
So although we change our mind, it comes by way of being convicted in our heart, and we rethink what we always thought. We are so convicted about what we always thought that we change our mind on the subject, and it affects what we do. We discover that one is not merely to think again, a change of mind is likely to ensue. Okay, Matthew 21, let's look at the Scripture and let's see where this happens. I love this, it's a parable. How many of you love parables? I kind of have a love-hate relationship with parables. I love them, and sometimes they confuse the living daylights out of me, and I'm always trying to figure out, decide who God is, who Jesus is, who I am, what's going on. And so we'll just let that rest, but it's the parable of the two sons. Now you're going to think of two specific sons, that's not the sons I'm talking about. Matthew 21:28–32 says this: "What do you think?" Now what do you feel? Come on, man, that was, oh man, it just made me so excited when I ran into that. I was like, wowzers, that's awesome. It starts with the same thinking: "what do you think? A man had two sons, and he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, 'I will not,' but afterward he changed his mind and went." Repentance. Notice here the truth comes to him by way of his mind: what do you think? The father gives a command, the son says no in rejection to the command, then conviction comes as he walks away and he considers how he talked to his father, what his father asked him to do. That is not by way of convincing the father. There is no dialogue where the father says, "Well, but if you do, I'll give you money." "Well, but if you'll be faithful to my word, you'll be blessed." "Well, but if you obey me and you do this thing, then you will be rich, you'll be healthy, and you'll be well and you'll be wise." None of that. There is no convincing in that sense. The convincing does not come from man, it is simply the command. But then something happens as he walks away from the man. Something happens in solitude in the heart of the man and the heart of God. Something happens away from the sermon and the service and the Sunday morning and the small group. Something happens when they go out in his normal day and begin to not do what God said to do. It's then that God takes truth and convicts the heart. Only God can do that. It is not the eloquence of the preaching, it is not in the convincing of the words, it is not in the compelling position of the gospel. Something happens in isolation in the man's heart where he's convicted. "I will not," but he changed his mind. And then notice what's attached to that comma: "I'll go." But afterward he changed his mind, and he what? And he what? He went. Notice here that conviction leads to repentance. When a change of mind convicts you to the degree that it changes where you go and what you do, that's key. That's evidence of repentance, is in the going. Evidence of repentance isn't when he went and did what he was told.
Notice here that the going doesn't save. The going is evidence that he's truly repented.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 39:25
So it is not then what we do, it is what God did in isolation, away from the convincing and compelling message. This is God's business. It is a gift that no one can boast in. And he does this by way of the truth being preached. And then listen to the other one, because this happens every Sunday, every day, when we walk away from a message, there is another response. "And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, 'I will go, sir.'" Notice here, what is the confession? "Yes, sir, I'm going to go do it." "Yes, sir, I'm going to go work in the vineyard." "Yes, sir, I confess, and I tell you today, and I declare, and I promise that I will do it. I'm going." Now here I go, and then he doesn't go. How many of you have ever met people like this in church? How many of you are people like this in church? And then he goes on: "Which of the two did the will of the Father?" The one who confessed it with his mouth but did not do it, or the one who denied that he would do it but ended up doing it because of conviction and a change of mind? And they said, "The first," of course. We're not idiots, I just threw that in there for flavor. But they said "the first." Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." That's like, that's like, dang, you're harsh, Jesus. You're so harsh, that's not PC. And Jesus goes, I don't care,
It's the truth. It's the truth. In case you didn't know, God cares about truth more than your feelings.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:18
Well, we do, so we have a God who doesn't care if it's between your feelings and truth.
No, he cares about truth. "Truly, I say to you," this is you, "for John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him." Notice here, believe is attached to going and doing. Notice here, he doesn't say anything about going and doing, but he says you changed your minds, repentance, and you believed him. What is believe attached to? You went and did it. So we're going to go do it and then we're going to be saved? No. Salvation, repentance is requisite, otherwise truth doesn't come in power to make you do it. All right. Number two, repentance. Another thing we see in repentance is this.
Point 4Godly sorrow and godly fear follow
First, what was it? Okay, you change your mind. Number two, what do we see whenever we see repentance happening in the Bible? You see that you are sorrowful. I put in here in parentheses "beyond measure," but I took it out and put in parentheses because everyone's "beyond measure" might be different, and I don't want to classify, I don't want you to classify whether your repentance is true or not based on you measuring it according to someone else's sorrow, because that might look different, amen. I don't have to be like David ripping my shirt and putting on sackcloth. Maybe that isn't, maybe that isn't the way sorrow looks for you, and if that becomes the mandate or the prescription by which all men should be sorrowful, a lot of us aren't going to heaven and many of us are not saved. But sorrow will come to the measure and the magnitude of which we do not know for certain, but we do know sorrow is requisite in repentance. So if you have, if you declare that God is your Lord and you have repented and changed your mind and you are his, then sorrow will be present in your life. I didn't say miserable, I didn't say woe-is-me, I said sorrow. You cannot change your mind and change your opinion without feeling sorrow for forever holding the wrong view up to that point. Some of you are okay feeling sorrow with the fact that as you get to be 45 and 50, I know because I'm that, you look back and go, man, I hope I didn't jack everything up. I hope I didn't mess my kids up. Man, I feel sorrow for some of the things I did wrong, and all of you can embrace that. But in the church, for some reason or another, when we talk about the spiritual life, we talk about repentance, we say sorrow shouldn't be present. I say if you're someone who says sorrow shouldn't be present, I believe you're someone who hasn't encountered the Lord, because sorrow is requisite when you look at where you've been from and who you are and what it took to deliver you. Sorrow is requisite. You should be sorrowful.
I'm not saying go be sorrowful so you can be saved. I'm saying if you're saved you will be sorrowful.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:49
There is no question that this first son in the parable, when after a while he thought again, saw that he was wrong, he shouldn't have spoken to his father like that, he became sorry that he did. He was grieved with himself that he could possibly speak to his father like that, so much so that he goes to the vineyard sorrowful. There is always this element of sorrow in repentance. We see here several things involved: the intellect, the heart, and the will. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 7:8–11, which says this. Second Corinthians, I'll give you a moment. 2 Corinthians 7:8–11: "For even if I made you grieve with my letter..." And I'm doing this in the New King James, so forgive me. I like the ESV, it chooses a word that is a fine word, it does the trick, but I like the word sorrow, so I'm going to use New King James here. All right, and many of your other translations might say something different. Well, let's just stick with the New King James. You can read it where you're at, but if I say sorry or sorrow and it says another word in your Bible, don't have a panic attack. You're not in the wrong book. I'm reading out of New King James in this verse. It says this, 2 Corinthians 7:8: "For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it, I do not regret it now; for I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while." Let's look at how much it says this: "though only for a while." "Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance." Oh, that's good stuff. Notice, sorrow is requisite in repentance. Notice here, "for you were made sorry in a godly manner." So we notice that everything in this world has a godly side and an ungodly side. There is such a thing as ungodly sorrow, which leads to depression and all other manner of evilness, but then there is a godly sorrow that does not enslave and put you in bondage under its heaviness but lightens your load and moves you from a place of slavery to sin to slavery to righteousness through repentance, "that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces" what?
Produces what? That's what produces repentance. "Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: what diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation," what, listen to this, "what fear." Oh, what about all that "fear not" stuff in the Bible? There is a godly fear and there is an ungodly fear. Can you imagine God putting fear in you to save you? Let me put it in a practical sense. A child goes up to the fire for the first time, puts his hand in the fire and realizes, that's hot. Now he's scared of that fire and stays clear of the fire that he might be saved from the pain of the fire. Thank God for that fear that saves a child from its flames. Are you with me today? I thought the Bible says "fear not,"
So we should just run into fires all the day long, and that's what God would want. Now let us also understand that there is a godly fear. It says, "with indignation, what fear, and what vehement desire, what zeal." You know what "zeal" actually means translated? "Zeal." That's interesting. I'd throw that out there today in light of all that we're talking about, that there is a zeal for God that's not a godly zeal. Be careful not to be identified with your zeal, because there is a godly zeal and there is an ungodly zeal, and there's a godly fear and an ungodly fear, and there's a godly sorrow and an ungodly sorrow. It is possible to listen to all the great truths your entire life and never feel any sorrow at all. If that is the case, listen to me with all gentleness I can muster up, the faith you profess is not a saving one. Well, that's offensive, Shawn. The truth is offensive. It'd be better for you to be offended and be saved than to never be offended and go to hell.
It'd be better because offense is temporary and hell is eternal.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:35
A Christian is a person who hates himself. Oh, you guys are like, no, you had me, you had me, you had me. Tell them we don't, we don't hate ourselves. Nowadays we love ourselves. We love ourselves. My counselor says to love myself. The Bible says that we should love ourselves. There is an ungodly love and there is a godly love. The Bible also says a Christian is a person who hates himself, because he's miserable and he's hateful and he's a vile sinner against a holy God. Saving faith does not deliver you from your awesomeness. Oh, that's so good, I'm gonna tweet it later this week. But I wrote that down just not even thinking, and saving faith does not save you from you being awesome, it saves you from you not being awesome. It goes further than that. Number three, you're fearful. We have a classic example of this in the preaching of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. We see fear in belief. Now notice here, when I'm talking about repentance, I'm talking about belief of the heart, that's what I'm talking about. So in other words, we can talk about believing in the, with our heart, and we can, that's used interchangeably with repentance. But in that believing in the heart and repentance, we see several things. We see several things, I want to make sure that I'm telling you right. We see that in repentance, or the believing in the heart, we see that you change your mind, we see that you're sorrowful, and number three, we see that you're fearful. Acts 2, when Peter is preaching what is referred to as one of the greatest messages at Pentecost, Acts 2:37–47, here's what he says. I'm going to read till 43, how about that? How about that? Anyway, verse 37: "Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart." Where were they cut to? Oh man, notice it started with the head and they were cut to the heart, "and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" Hear the urgency, the fear here. There's a fear that drives this question. Now some of you are like, Shawn, that's reaching, man. That's reaching, bro.
That's reaching, Pastor. That's reaching, dude. That's reaching. I'm glad you said that, because if you read on you actually get to hear the word "fear." "And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.'" Okay, listen to this, the message: Jesus Christ, the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is to who? To you and to your children and to everyone from afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call. Not as many as will decide when they hear a sermon, by the way. It doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible, anywhere. Okay, moving on, because that's a trigger-inducing point. All right, verse 40: "And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.' So those who received his word were baptized," gladly. Gladly, not godly, gladly.
"Received his word were baptized." Notice there were people who did not gladly receive the word but were offended, and offended to rejection of that word. "And that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Then fear came upon every soul that was saved. I propose to you this morning that when we talk about repentance or belief in the heart, fear is requisite. A change of mind is requisite, godly sorrow is requisite, and there will always be for someone who is saved a godly fear. Let us first, let's further consider the Philippian jailer. I love this, Acts 16:25–30: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." That's what we tend to focus on when we preach this sermon: how is it that a man being beaten and thrown into prison and going through all these afflictions would still sing hymns and praises to God in prison? That seems to be the thing, and we try to answer and we pontificate and we wonder and we eloquently try to express why a man would stand in prison, in abuse, in opposition, in pain, in trouble, and praise God. I want to propose to you it's because they have truly repented, and they are more fearful of God than of anything man can do. Their praise and their worship is motivated by fear of a holy God in light of their brokenness without him. "Okay, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, 'Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!' And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'" Not all fear will be on the same level as what we just read. Be careful to not measure your salvation based on the fear in others, but just know a godly fear is requisite for salvation. It may not be on the same level as what we just read, however there is no such thing as saving faith without an element of fear. Fear because he sinned against God, fear because he realized he's in the hands of a holy God. Fear is a vital part of saving faith and a believing heart and what we refer to today as repentance. The gospel is not some glib story told to men to evoke nothing more than joy and happiness. The gospel unsettles our footing,
It disrupts our agendas, it terrifies our soul, and it delivers us unto righteousness in ways that no work can.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 58:49
If you have the true view of saving faith and belief, you treat the urge to call people to respond differently than you might if you do not have the right view of saving faith. Listen to me today, don't miss this. Don't miss this. Listen to me. Some of you are wondering why I don't do altar calls so much. I'm trying to explain this to you. If you have the true view of saving faith and belief, you will know this: if the Spirit convicts a person, they will seek help. You need not force some to. He'll just have to, he will be miserable and sorrowful and frightened. There is an account of revival that happened in Congo, and I'm trying to close here. And this revival was an explosion in the Congo. There was a missionary there who had been living there for 20 years, and this is what he quoted: "I've been here for 20 years, I've been preaching my heart out, I've been compelling people to come forward day after day, year upon year, moment upon moment, and no one came. No one came for 20 years. I could not get a soul to come forward." And then he left the Congo. He left the Congo just for a week, and while he was away doing something else, a revival came and broke out. And when he got back, this is what he found: not only did he not have to ask the crowd to come forward, they had to restrain the crowd that was coming forward. They were burdened beyond measure with the weight of dealing with all the people who were demanding help and release. Crowds of people were drowning in agony, asking for release, and they could not bear the weight of the coming. A frantic desire for deliverance with no call at all. Oh wait a minute, at least not a call of man, but a call of God. Why do we feel that God is limited by an earthly call when it is the effectual call of God that captures a heart and motivates it unto righteousness? Oh, that's a beautiful story. And the fourth part that we
Point 5True belief ends in trust and reliance
See in repentance, we see the trust and the confidence. We see a changed mind, we see sorrow, we see fear, and we see trust and confidence in our blessed Lord and savior. You know what belief literally means in Greek? Quite literally, here's what it means: to adhere to. So notice here, it goes further than the mind, it goes further than the heart, it then moves into the will. So all you have to do is believe and confess? Well, I believe in my mind. But to be saved it is not just an intellectual thing, but it's a heart thing where we're convicted, we're convicted to such a degree that our mind changes and then it affects what we do. That's the belief that's being referred to here: changed mind, godly sorrow, godly fear, trust and confidence in him, a belief that changes what we do and who we are. You trust him, you rely upon him, you have confidence in him. One commentator says this: "Saving faith is a certain conviction wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit as to the truth of the gospel, and a hearty reliance and trust in the promises of God in Christ." In other words, it's more than an awareness of truth, it's a reliance upon it. It is a committal of yourself to it is abandonment of yourself to it, it is a casting yourself upon it. Hebrews 11:6–7 says this, couple more scriptures and I'm done: "And without faith it is impossible to please him." What is faith? It is a gift from God that no man can boast in. "For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." Belief is here, what is belief? It is a head knowledge, it is a heart understanding, a conviction to a degree that you change your mind and that it affects what you do. That's the belief it's referring to here: "believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." "By faith Noah, being warned by God," notice this, truth came, he heard, he understood, he was convicted by what he heard, that God warned, "being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household." Come on, guys, come on, this is so exciting. You see how extensive belief is? It moves from the mind to the heart to the will. Noah didn't go, "I believe you're going to kill everyone, I believe you're going to drown us all," and then sat on the couch until the rain came. Now he was convicted, it affected what he believed in and what he knew to be true and what he heard from God to such a degree that he went into action.
Action did not save him, belief did. Faith saved him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:05:58
Faith saved him. Who gave him the faith to believe to the degree that it changed what he did? Who did that? God did. Only God could do that. Hebrews 11:13: "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged," I like the word acknowledged, some translations say "embraced," "having embraced that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." Many people think that John Calvin was a cold, harsh, intellectual theologian and just a meanie-pants. John Calvin says this: "the seat," not seed, "the seat of faith," he's, this is Old English writing, and by the way, I mean this is not going to be hard, it's not going to be easy to understand and you'll have to watch it back if you want to hear this. But here's what he says: "The seat of faith, it deserves to be observed, is not in the brain only but in the heart. Not that I wish to enter into any dispute concerning the part of the body that is the seat of faith, but since the word heart generally means a serious, sincere, ardent affection, I am desirous to show the confidence of faith to be firm, efficacious, and operative principle in all the emotions and feelings of the soul. It is not, I repeat, not a mere naked notion of the head." That's good stuff. One day I hope to be so smart. Therefore saving faith is not a natural quality that everyone possesses. Come on, listen to me today. I've heard people teach about faith like this, and I'm going to close. Everybody has faith, every man is born with a measure of faith. A man once used the example like this in an evangelistic crusade, a man who I will not tell you who it was, but he was about to travel on a train in London. He said this in the close of his message: "When I boarded the train this evening and lay down in the bed that I have a ticket for, how will I lay my head in peace? Well, I have faith in the engineer. What you need to do is to take the faith that you have, and everyone else has, and apply it in the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing to stop you from doing it if you only stop and turn your faith toward Christ." However, saving faith is a matter of the heart, not merely an act of the will. Are you guys with me today? It's not merely a matter of intellect and will, and since the heart of men is desperately wicked, as it says in the Bible, and sinful by nature, and as we have already seen, the natural mind, it says in the Bible, is at enmity against God in every way, it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be. Paul says we must trust in something beyond ourselves. We must trust in a saving faith that only comes from God. 1 Corinthians 2:9–11 says, "But as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him'; but God has revealed them to us by his Spirit." I thought we all had it already. 1 Corinthians 2:12: "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." We don't all have this faith.
It is a gift of the Spirit of God. This is God's business.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:10:51
So when we say you merely must believe and confess, don't you know there's so much more to it than just what you might think intellectually.
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