Let’s go to Mark chapter 1. The question now is how do we surrender self reign? What is God’s provision to enable us to surrender self-reign. Mark chapter 1, verses 14 and 15. These are two verses that you need to memorize. You’ll find the entire gospel in these two verses: what it is, where He is taking us, and what it’s all about.
Now after John had been taken unto custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
What was He preaching? “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God (the reign of God) is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The gospel of God that Jesus came preaching was the gospel that the time is fulfilled, and that which all of creation has been waiting for from the fall of Adam, is now fulfilled in Christ. The reign of God is now available to the heart of man. The reign of God is here to deal with the rebellion. And unlike what Israel was expecting, God has chosen to first establish that which He intended to establish first in the Garden, and first in the heart of man. And so, in secret almost, in hidden places nearly, He is establishing His reign where it cannot be clearly seen. They cannot say, “Look, here it is or there it is,” for behold, the kingdom of God is within you, the reign of God is within you.
He has first come to establish this kingdom which is both a now kingdom and a future kingdom. It really is not fulfilled in fullness yet. It is going to remain in the heart of man until the return of Christ. And then for a millennium it is expanded over the nations of men. It is not until the end of the millennium that it finally conquers the last enemy which is what? Death!
And so progressively, in a three fold way, God is establishing His kingdom but he is first establishing it within us. But He gives in this passage two provisions for the surrender of self-rule and His provision for surrendering self-will.
About Face!
The first provision is found in verse 15.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand…”
And then what does it say?
Repent!
Repentance is God’s provision for surrender of self-rule. Now follow with me if you would. What does repentance mean? Does it mean to turn from your sins? Yes… Or does it mean to change your mind? That is usually the definition that is given because change is at the root. But we are living in an age where changing the mind may not affect the feet or the hands. Changing the mind is an intellectual concept change. To the Hebrew mind and to the Greek mind, there is no change of mind that is not expressed in life. And so that is the way it is expressed in scripture.
Actually, the Hebrew word for repentance is a military word and it means literally, “about face”. In other words, I’m going this direction but now I’m going the opposite direction. It is turning my back on where I was set for, bound for, and then moving in an opposite direction. Repentance literally means a change of mind that affects hands and feet. It’s a change of mind that is a turning from both in the head and in the expression of life. When there is no legitimate turning, if it is just a change of mind, that’s not repentance. Repentance is not just a change of mind. The Greek does not allow it to be just a change of mind nor do the texts in the New Testament allow repentance just to be a change of mind.
The scribes and Pharisees depended upon their heads and their intellect. When they encountered John the Baptist preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom saying, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand,” how did they handle it? How did the Sadducees handle it? Well, they accepted John’s teaching but there was no fruit of repentance, because John said, “Bring me fruit of your repentance.” There is no repentance without its accompanying fruit, without it being expressed in hands and feet. Am I coming through?
We are doing others a disfavor to suggest that salvation is just a change of mind. Because we have come to believe that faith is an intellectual thing. Faith is not an intellectual thing. Faith is a heart thing. “For with the heart man believes.” We keep talking about getting what we believe in our head down to our heart. It’s not just believing it in our head because we live out of what we believe in our heart.
No matter what you say you believe, I’ll tell you what you believe by what your feet and hands do when someone runs in to the church worship center and yells, “FIRE!” I’ll tell you what you believe in the next ten seconds. I’ll know whether or not they’ve convinced you that the church building is on fire by what you do with your hands and your feet. You will not sit there and analyze the statement. If one of your church’s deacons comes running into the Sunday morning service and yells, “FIRE!” what would you do? Debate the issue? Consider the pros and cons of whether or not there is enough smoke to determine if there is a fire that would endanger you? What would you do?
I’ll tell you what you would do. You would make a change. And you would find the nearest exit. And you would hope the life of Christ reigns and the men would not run over the women and children on the way out.
But, it’s what we believe in our heart that rules. Actually it is not only the righteous man that lives by faith. The unrighteous man lives by faith too. The unrighteous man lives by what he believes in his heart too. And you can tell whether or not we are living in righteousness or unrighteousness by what our hands and our feet are doing, no matter what we say we believe. We’re talking about true repentance.
Let’s go to Matthew chapter 3, verse 1.
Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Repent! Once again we have this requirement.
Now we’ll go to chapter 4, verse 17 and we see Jesus at the beginning of His ministry.
From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Both Jesus and John the Baptist are preaching a gospel of repent for the reign of God is at hand.
I want to ask you a question: repent of what? Now think about it. Don’t be quick. Is Jesus preaching against sin? You would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the Gospels a reference of Jesus speaking against sin. I challenge you. He refers to it on occasion. There are a couple of occasions where someone is taken in sin but He never deals with His teaching to them or His parables to them or His speaking to them about sin other than, “Go, and sin no more.” That’s the longest one in the Gospels.
But He does talk a lot about the gospel of the reign being here. Repent! What we need to repent of is who reigns. What we are to turn our back on and turn to is turning our back on self-reign and turning to His reign. Many have gone over their sins and repented but have yet to repent of their own reign. That’s why the church is so filled with so much sin. Because the sin issue cannot be dealt with by constantly confessing and leaving the issue of who reigns un-dealt with.
That’s why we are in such trouble in the church. That’s why marriages are in trouble in the church. That’s why our wives and daughters in the church are getting abortions at the same rate as the world is getting abortions. That’s why couples in the church are divorcing at the same rate as the world. It’s because we’ve never dealt with the issue of who reigns. And if you are going to repent of your sins without repenting about your reign, you’re just going to repeat your sin. Can you see the significance of this? It’s the Gospel of the Kingdom.
He came preaching the gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled. The reign of God is here. Repent, and believe the good news!”
We need a repentance party. We need a surrender party. Some of us, maybe many of us need to go through the exercise of dealing with who’s reigning. It is the means where by we surrender our reign. We surrender our reign by turning our back to our reign and unto His. It’s the surrender of our reign that repentance is all about.
Let’s go to Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10.
…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
It’s turning to the Lord. It is confessing Jesus as Lord and believing in your heart.
Let’s go to Acts chapter 2, verse 37.
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Here we see both the repentance and the believing but focusing on the repentance,
“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…”
Here is this repentance, this turning from the reign of self in our hearts, turning to the reign of Christ. It is turning from our reign to the reign of our Lord, and that is called repentance. Repentance is God’s provision for surrender of self-rule.
Tags: Gospel Jesus Preached, The Gospel, Truth
A Revolutionary Gospel 
March 19, 2009 at 10:53 am
Repentance is often a tough subject to deal with.
It is tempting to say that it is just as simple as to stop doing the things that you know are wrong, and then start doing what you know is right.
I think that most of can testify that it isn’t always that easy.
Romans 7 combs through that tangled mess pretty thoroughly….
and as this message explains; it’s not so much about turning from ‘sin’ as it is turning from self government.
However, it doesn’t change the fact that repentance is still the requirement.
It takes so much more than our own resolution.
“It is the goodness of God which draws men to repentance”.
Speaking of repentance as ‘His provision’, as you do here, expresses it perfectly.
I’m so glad that you are posting these messages.
March 19, 2009 at 11:11 am
And true repentance takes something else too. It takes turning from for sure but it also takes turning to something else as well.
Thanks for your kind words Johnny. You are an encourager.
March 21, 2009 at 3:31 am
I like what you say about repentence and the whole hands and feet thing. How often have we seen people say that they are sorry about something and then they carry on in the same fashion. Sorry is very easy to say but meaningless if it doesn’t result in any material differences to our behaviour. Repentence is so much more than saying sorry. It is, as you say a complete about turn.
Now of course..that is easier said than done! I am so glad that God does indeed look at our hearts…if he only relied on my outward poor attempts to live the Kingdom life, he’s be sorely disappointed with me. Our lives are a spiritual journey that starts with the repentence that comes in response to Jesus proclamation that the Kingdom is here and coming!
Great post Jerald!
March 21, 2009 at 11:47 am
Witty, you can take this whole idea of repentance to its logical conclusion by dealing with it in the following ways: For example, let’s say you repent of eating too much, of being a glutton. You’re too fat and have health issues because of it. So you go to God to repent because the Holy Spirit has convicted you of your sin.
You rise from you knees after making a commitment to a healthier lifestyle and you do to your refrigerator and clean out all the fatty foods and all the ice cream and cakes and pies and throw them in the trash. You go around the house with a garbage bag and collect all the candy and snacks you’ve hidden away just in case you get a hunger pang in the middle of the night.
You go out and purchase a pair of walking shoes and beg your neighbor to let you ‘borrow’ their big dog to take on a walk every day. You get a cook book that tells all about how to steam all kinds of vegetables.
And finally you sit down with your family and friends and confess your sin to them and vow that you’ve changed and ask them to keep you accountable by reminding you every time there might be even a hint of eating something that is the least bit fattening.
Now, that’s what I believe true repentance is all about. It’s putting your hands and feet into action.
March 25, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Yes, I agree. repentence should be evidence in action and some kind of changed behaviour. I am reminded of Jesus challenging words in John 15 about the vine and the branches. There must be fruit in oiur lives- however slow it maybe in coming! I think also that what you say about ‘The Holy Spirit’ convicting is crucial. We must remember that we respond to God’s initiative and His promptings as he deals with areas of our lives, bringing them to our attention to be dealt with. If we don’t remember this then we will fall into self effort and fail miserably- as Brother Johnny alluded to in his post.