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Grace Church Roseville is not a church characterized as issue-oriented.

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Some churches become best known for their stands against or in favor of certain issues,

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be those issues political, social, or religious.

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It's not that we don't talk about current affairs, but we don't major on them to the

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point that people identify our church with those issues, and frankly, I feel comfortable

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with that.

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But tonight we are going to talk about an issue.

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My purpose in doing so is to address an issue that is becoming increasingly controversial

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and divisive in the body of Christ.

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And I think that it's important to address this because of the vast confusion on the

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subject that is being generated by tapes, radio broadcasts, books, papers, and debates

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on the subject.

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The central focus of the question is the one that's the title of the message tonight and

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which is found in the book of Acts chapter 16.

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You need not look at it because you'll recognize the question.

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It's the question the Philippian jailer asked of Paul in Silas, "'Sir, what must I do to

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be saved?'

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Now that's the question.

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What must I do to be saved?'

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It was a question asked with urgency and it was answered in simplicity.

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Paul simply said to him, "'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.'"

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Now one would think there would be no argument about the answer to that question as to what

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to do to be saved, but in fact there is argument, questions like, well, what does it mean to

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believe and what is the nature of faith that saves?

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Or others pose the question, must Christ also be Lord in order to be Savior?

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Two sides have polarized in this debate and names familiar to all of us are on both sides

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of it.

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Their positions are usually labeled by the opposition.

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There are those who are said by their opponents to teach easy believism.

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On the other hand, those people say of their opponents that they teach lordship salvation.

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It is a dangerous thing to try to define these terms briefly, but I'm going to do that for

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the sake of some who may be totally unfamiliar with what these terms represent.

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Easy believism is said to be the teaching of cheap grace, the teaching of superficial

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faith, that all that one has to do is to intellectually believe in Jesus Christ and He is saved and

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it makes no difference about His life after that, whether it gives fruit or whether there

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is obedience to Christ.

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In fact, one writer even says that a person can totally deny God and become an infidel

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and an apostate, but yet if he at one time prayed a prayer and believed in Jesus, he

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is still a Christian.

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And so that is something of a caricature of easy believism.

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And then there are those who are said to teach lordship salvation, which is said to be the

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adding of repentance to faith, making repentance a human work and thus mixing works and faith

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together and perverting the gospel.

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Those who teach what is called lordship salvation are said to preach that one must surrender

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everything in his life when he trusts Jesus Christ for salvation and that if he does not

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do that, he is not truly a Christian.

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It's unfortunate that each of these groups is somewhat guilty of misrepresenting the

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other and has encouraged the taking of sides and the calling of names.

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Christians have been hurt, churches have been divided, and fellowship has been broken as

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this issue has been made the test of one's orthodoxy.

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If in fact the gospel is genuinely being undermined and compromised, it is a matter of grave concern

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to us and it is an issue that is worth fighting about.

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But frankly, my conclusion is that the two groups are a lot closer to each other than

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they are willing to admit, especially to each other.

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Under the guise of arguing for truth, the debate I think has degenerated into one of

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personality and pride and not unlike that spirit that was among the Corinthians when

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they were guilty of having what Paul called a party spirit.

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I think we need to ask two questions to begin looking at the matter before us.

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The first question is this, what is the gospel?

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Actually there is not too much debate about that simple question from the two sides.

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Both sides would agree that it is the good news of salvation from sin, which is based

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upon the historical unique work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

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And both sides would correctly go to 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4 and point to those verses

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as a definition of the historical gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ

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for our sins.

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And indeed that is the message.

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By the way, that is the message, but particularly in our culture we have to be careful because

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in that simple message that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and was

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buried and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, there are some presuppositions.

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One has to understand who Christ is, for example.

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One has to have some understanding of what sin is.

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One has to understand what Christ's death for our sins means.

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And one needs to understand the fact of the resurrection.

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Now I mention that because we cannot presume that those to whom we witness today regarding

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this simple gospel understand what those terms mean.

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We cannot merely presume they understand who Christ is or what sin is or the concept of

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His death for our sins or the resurrection from the dead.

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And so in presenting the simple gospel, we must be sure that people understand those

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truths.

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We are coming into a culture that's not unlike the cultures that many missionaries face where

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there is really no knowledge of the biblical God and biblical terms, biblical truth.

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And it's going to be nearly impossible for a person to really take the four spiritual

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laws or some of the simple tools that have been used in the past and to go through those

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and to expect the person who's hearing it for the first time to understand what it means

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because we are in a secular culture that is post-Christian.

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And that's one reason I'm comfortable with our evangelism strategy here that says that

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one of our key tools in getting the gospel to people is to use home Bible studies where

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we can build up to the simple gospel and lay a foundation for it going back to Genesis

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and building from there to be assured that when people hear that Christ died for our

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sins and rose from the dead, they understand what that means.

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You see, now what has all this got to do with lordship, salvation, or easy believism?

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Well, maybe not a whole lot, but it has what to do with the gospel.

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We need to be sure people understand those simple terms that we take for granted because

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of our background.

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But that brings us to a second question, and this is the heart of what we want to talk

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about tonight.

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What does one have to do to be saved?

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What is required so that that message of the gospel that we just talked about is genuinely

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applied to one's personal life?

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That's the question.

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I think all of us would agree that salvation is not a matter of doing, but of responding.

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For salvation does not originate with man, but with God.

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Salvation is of the Lord.

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Eternal life is not something we do to get, but we respond to the gospel, to the work

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that God has done so that we can be saved.

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But that brings us to this point then, what is that response that is necessary on our

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part?

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There are two words that seem to be used interchangeably in the New Testament to describe that necessary

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response within the heart of the sinner so that he can be saved by the death, burial,

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and resurrection of Jesus Christ for his sins.

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And those two words are believe and repent.

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I repeat, it seems that these two words are used interchangeably.

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Let me show you what I mean.

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Listen with me to the gospel of Mark, chapter 16.

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I want you to compare the Great Commission as Mark records it with the Great Commission

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as Luke records it.

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It begins here in the last part of Mark 16.

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Look at verse 16, which says, He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but

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he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

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Now we are introduced here to a whole other topic and that is the relationship of baptism

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to belief.

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I just want to simply point out to you that if baptism were essential to salvation, then

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it seems to me that Mark would have concluded by this kind of a statement, but he who has

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disbelieved and has not been baptized shall be condemned.

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But I don't want to get into that subject tonight.

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I just want to point out to you the fact that Jesus said, He who has believed and has been

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baptized shall be saved.

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The emphasis here is on belief, believing.

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But then compare what is said in Luke, also attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Luke chapter 24 and verse 46, and He said to them, thus it is written that the Christ

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should suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for

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forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations beginning from

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Jerusalem.

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And so in the two accounts that we've looked at of the Great Commission, in one place believing

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is used and in another place repentance is used.

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So my point is that those words are used interchangeably, that they bring you out to the same point,

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the forgiveness of sins.

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I'd like you to look also in the book of Acts chapter 2 and verse 38.

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And once again, we could get sidetracked on the issue of baptism, but that isn't my purpose

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tonight.

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I want to talk about what Peter says here and in another place.

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In verse 38, Peter says, and repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of

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Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

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So here Peter says on the day of Pentecost as he preaches to the Jews listening to him,

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repent.

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And if you'll just look in chapter 3, you'll find that he says it again in the verse we

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looked at this morning, verse 19.

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On another occasion preaching on Solomon's porch at the temple, he says, repent therefore

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and return that your sins may be wiped away.

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Now the same Peter, a little bit later, preaches the gospel again.

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Let's look in chapter 10.

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In verse 43, here he is preaching to Cornelius and those gathered in his household.

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And he has recounted certain things regarding Jesus Christ.

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And he says in verse 43, of him all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone

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who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.

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And so now when Peter is preaching, he uses the term believes before the word repent.

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Again I say the word repent, the word believe can be used interchangeably and bring you

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out to the same point, forgiveness of sins.

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And I want to point out to you one other example of this and it's Paul and we quickly go on

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our way.

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But Acts chapter 13 and verse 39 where Paul is here preaching to the Jews and he says,

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and through him everyone who believes is freed or is justified from all things from which

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you could not be freed through the law of Moses.

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So now we have the apostle Paul, he is preaching to the Jews and he says everyone who believes

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is freed from all things.

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So I want you to compare Paul on another occasion when he preaches in Athens chapter 17 and

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verse 30 where he says, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring

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to men that all everywhere should repent.

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And so the same apostle Paul, preaching on two different occasions, comes to the climax,

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what do the people need to do with the message?

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In one place he says believe, in another place he says repent, the words are used interchangeably.

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And to underscore the relationship even further turn to Acts 20 and verse 21 where the apostle

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relates his ministry to the Ephesian elders telling them what he was doing.

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And he says in verse 21, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward

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God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And so these two words are related.

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I want to emphasize that they are not synonymous, they don't mean exactly the same thing, but

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they are complementary.

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They are like the two sides to one coin.

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They belong together and to use one or to use the other makes really no difference in

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the end if they're properly understood.

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Louis Burkoff in his systematic theology says this, true repentance never exists except

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in conjunction with faith.

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While on the other hand wherever there is true faith there is also real repentance.

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The two cannot be separated, they are simply complementary parts of the same process.

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But how are they defined?

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What is faith?

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What is repentance?

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To believe means, and you could fill in some of the words, to trust, to rely on, to commit,

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to place confidence in.

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Now we could look up a number of scriptures here where the word is used not necessarily

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in a salvation context and we could see that that's the meaning of this verb.

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It is used of Jesus for example in John 2 verses 23 and 24 where it says that Jesus

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did not entrust Himself to the multitudes.

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Literally it says Jesus did not believe Himself to the multitudes.

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He did not commit Himself to them because He saw that they were of superficial faith.

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The idea there in the use of the very same term believe is to commit oneself.

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It is used by Paul in writing to Timothy when he talks about God entrusting to him the gospel.

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In other words he says God believed to me the gospel.

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That is He committed it to me.

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He entrusted it to me.

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He placed confidence in me giving it to me.

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So that's the whole idea of believing.

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It is to place confidence in, to rely upon.

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When we call upon people to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we are saying we want you

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to do more than learn about Him, that there are some intellectual facts you must understand.

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But we are saying you must rely upon Him.

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You must commit yourself to Him in some sense.

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You must place confidence in Him.

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That's what it means to believe.

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But let's look at the companion term to repent.

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What does that mean?

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Well the word literally means to change the mind.

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Repentance is the change of one's mind.

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John's dictionary says this about repentance.

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This change of mind involves, listen, both a turning from sin and a turning to God.

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And so the standard work that most of us use to define what biblical words mean says that

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the word repent means more than an intellectual process again, but there's fallout from it.

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It involves both a turning from sin and a turning to God says Vine.

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If it's a change of mind, what is it a change of mind and heart about?

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Well let me just be suggestive about this.

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We don't have time to go into detail, but it means in the first place that I change

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my mind regarding the basis of my hope.

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No longer am I placing my hope in myself and in my works, in my merit to get me to heaven.

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I change my mind about that and the basis of my hope is not my work, it's Christ's

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work at the cross.

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Not myself anymore, Him.

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It's also a change of mind about Christ Himself, who He is, that He is God, not just a man.

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Now there are some who want to limit repentance to just that thought, that it means acknowledging

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that He is God, period.

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The problem with that is when you acknowledge that He is God, there are certain implications

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that cannot be missed or overlooked.

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For acknowledging that He is God means that He is also worthy of worship, He is worthy

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to be served.

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And I believe we have an example of that in none other than the Apostle Paul himself when

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he was saved.

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We could look at the original account of that in Acts 9, but I'd like for us to look in

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Acts 22 where he is testifying about what happened to him that day on the road to Damascus.

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Look at verse 7 of Acts 22.

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He says, I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you

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persecuting me?

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And I answered, who art thou, Lord?

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Now the word Lord can also mean sir, it's just a polite term.

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Paul may have meant it in that sense.

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It's difficult to argue that one way or the other, the term also means deity.

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But he says, who art thou, Lord?

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And he said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.

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And then he says, those who were around him saw the light but didn't understand the

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voice.

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And I said, verse 10, Paul says, I said, what shall I do, Lord?

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And the Lord said to me, arise and go on to Damascus.

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My point is this, that at this time of believing and repenting on the part of the Apostle Paul,

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he understood who was speaking to him and recognized him, calling him Lord.

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And his very first response recognizing his lordship is, what shall I do?

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And so when we define repentance as merely an acknowledgement that Jesus is God and not

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merely man, we haven't gone far enough because to acknowledge that he is deity has some implications

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including what my response to him as deity ought to be.

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If Jesus is in fact God, there are ramifications that are immediately apparent in my life as

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a sinner.

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Ramifications dealing with worship and service.

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Well, repentance means that I change my mind about the basis of my hope about who Jesus

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Christ is and it also means I change my mind about my sin.

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This cannot be overlooked in repentance and be biblical about it.

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Repentance has to do with one's attitude about his sin.

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Instead of desiring and loving sin, which is the natural state of the sinner, one who

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is in the process of believing and repenting changes his mind and he says in that instant,

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sin is wrong.

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I no longer desire sin and I want to change.

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And at that instant he is further willing to change as much as he has given light to

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see where it is needed.

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I want to emphasize that.

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The sinner in coming to Christ is incapable of understanding how much of his life needs

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to be revolutionized by Jesus Christ.

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That is a lifelong process that all of us are still involved in.

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But to some extent that sinner does understand what needs to happen inside of him.

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Lordship is an issue at salvation to some extent because it is inherently present as

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a result of conviction.

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The spotlight of the Holy Spirit has hit that sinner at some point in his life and within

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the circle of that light where he understands what his sin is and its rebellion against

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God there must be submission to Jesus Christ.

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The sinner cannot say to Jesus Christ, I believe in you, but I will not yield this to you and

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be genuinely saved.

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I cannot see that as biblical salvation.

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I repeat again, he cannot give his whole life intelligently to Christ because he does not

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know all that that involves.

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He spends his whole life learning that.

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But within the spotlight of conviction where the Spirit of God is bringing him to the point

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of repentance there has to be a dealing with that sin and that does involve the Lordship

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of Christ.

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Now some have a problem with this because they understand repentance as a human work,

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a human effort.

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And when one talks about repentance they get upset and nervous because they see that here

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you're adding something on to the simplicity of faith.

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You're saying that the human being must do something besides believe.

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And I believe that is erroneous for this reason.

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Repentance is no more a work of the human being than faith is.

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If repentance is a work of the human being so is his faith.

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My point is that neither can be accurately termed human works because both faith and

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repentance are the result of God's gracious work in the sinner's heart.

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Faith and repentance are gifts that he gives to the sinner enabling the sinner to respond

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rightly to the gospel under the saving of his soul.

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All of us are familiar with Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

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Let's look at that just for a moment.

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We'll come back to Acts in a second but I want you to look at Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

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There's no one more jealous of protecting the gospel from human works than myself.

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And I think the Apostle Paul would join all of us in that for he writes here, by grace

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you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God.

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Now what is not of yourselves the gift of God?

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Well it is the salvation which is through faith.

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The whole ball of wax is in the Apostle's mind here.

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It is the salvation and it is the faith to respond to it.

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It's all lumped together and Paul says this whole thing is not of yourselves, it's God's

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gift, it is not the result of works that no one should boast.

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So here we see that faith is in fact the gracious gift of God within the heart of the believer

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so that he can respond in trusting himself to Christ, relying upon Christ and his finished

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work for his salvation.

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But I want you to go back now to Acts with me again and notice, excuse me, let's turn

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to Romans first.

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I got ahead of myself.

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I'll quite go back to Acts.

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Go to Romans chapter 2.

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And I want you to see here that not only is faith the gift of God but so is repentance.

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Paul says in verse 4, do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance

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and patience not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

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Do you see the point?

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A person who is a sinner is brought to repentance by the kindness of God and the gift of repentance

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is given to him just as is the gift of faith.

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Now turn back to Acts and we look in chapter 11 in verse 18 to see an example of this.

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Peter is here now back in Jerusalem.

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He's recounting to the leaders what happened in the household of Cornelius.

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Now in verse 18 it says, and when they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God

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saying, well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to

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life.

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So once more notice that repentance comes from God as a grant.

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It is his gracious gift to a person to be able to respond correctly to the gospel.

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You can look at repentance in other contexts and you will find that it upholds this same

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idea, that it is the work of God in a person.

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When one is saved, he repents and believes.

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And then the evidence of his genuine salvation is in the works that follow.

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And even those works themselves are the gracious outworking of God in his life.

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Paul says in Philippians 2, for it is God who is working in you both the willing and

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the doing of his good pleasure.

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There is never a point when we can look up to God and say, I am doing this all of myself.

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The believing, the repenting, and the good works that follow that are all the gracious

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work of God in us.

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But having said that and having emphasized the fact that after genuine faith and repentance,

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good works follow, we have to also acknowledge this, that it is possible for a true believer

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to experience worldliness, to experience carnal living, and to show in his life the works

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of the flesh.

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When that is the case, it is ugly, it is out of character, it is inconsistent with who

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he is as a child of God, and it dishonors his Lord and Savior.

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But the thing about a child of God is that he will at some point acknowledge and confess

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his sins.

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That's really what 1 John 1-9 is all about.

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The child of God is characterized by the fact that he is willing to confess his sins.

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Such a disobedient child, if he does not confess, may as well be disciplined by his loving Heavenly

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Father.

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Why is that?

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Because God wants his children to walk with fullness of joy and purpose in this life.

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And he wants the life to produce the glorious fruit of the Spirit so that Christ is glorified

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in him.

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And God will do what he needs to do with his child to see that that comes to pass.

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But understand that the appropriate response on the part of the sinner in hearing the gospel

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is to repent and to believe.

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When he does that, he is saved and becomes a child of God.

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I think it's important to tell people that when we witness to them.

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We don't have to overemphasize one thing or the other, but I think that when we explain

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to them what to do to respond to the gospel, we need to explain what it means to believe

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and what it means to repent.

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That they might know how to respond appropriately to the gospel message and become a child of

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God.

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Now there are some people who get very upset when they hear messages like this and they

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say, well when I trusted Christ, I never even heard the word repent.

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Now how do I know that I repented?

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And am I really saved if I didn't repent back then?

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And believe me, there have been people who have been to the point of suicide over that

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thought.

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Did I repent?

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Well the fact is that if genuine faith was extended by you to Christ back at that point,

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repentance was a part of that even though you may not have recognized it.

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That was the work of God in you because repentance and faith go together.

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So don't allow yourself to become alarmed about that.

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When there has been genuine repentance and faith, your life will go on in some measure

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to show that.

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None of us become perfect overnight, but in the process of time, God begins to transform

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us and to change the orientation of our lives and the Lordship of Christ begins to expand

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and we see new areas that need to be yielded to Him and that goes on for the life.

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And God is glorified.

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Let's bow together in prayer.

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So before we go tonight, I wonder if there might be one here who has not been saved.

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Let me emphasize tonight that there is no hope in whatever you can do to try to impress

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God, but your only hope is in Jesus Christ and His work at the cross for you.

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Tonight, God calls upon you to believe in Him, to rely upon Him and not yourself.

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And in that reliance, to change your mind about what you've trusted in, to change your

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mind about your sin.

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As you do that, a new desire is born within you, a new turning to God.

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We would pray that you would do that tonight.

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Father, thank You for the grace that saves us.

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Sometimes we get so hung up on our part and what we do.

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What man must do to respond appropriately.

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When the greater part of the story is what You've done, the great mercy and grace and

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love You have bestowed upon us in Christ.

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Thank You for Him and thank You for the gospel.

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Lord, make us good witnesses, good communicators of that gospel.

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May we go out from here determined tonight that we might be faithful in approaching our

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friends and those who will hear us about Jesus, that they might come to respond to Him and

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be saved.

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Now Lord bless us, I pray, in the fellowship time downstairs.

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Thank You for the refreshments that we have and for those who have lovingly prepared those

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for us.

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We ask Your blessing on the time.

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In Jesus' name, amen.