God first gives, and then watches for the 180 in your soul

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Sunday,
March 7, 2010

God first gives, and then watches for the 180 in your soul

God’s plan throughout all the ages is that He might be glorified by the grace that He dispenses to undeserving creatures.

the lost sheep, LUK 15:4-7,
the lost coin, LUK 15:8-10,
the lost sons, LUK 15:11-32.

The central truth of the parable is the joy God has over the change in status of a believer from lost to found, from “dead” to “alive”. Or in a word, “restoration” or what our Lord calls in verse 7 “repentance”.

He acts for His own sake, and yet He has joy when He gets a positive response from one of His sinning, weak, yet thinking creatures.

There is no merit in BELIEVING.
There is no merit in CONFESSING.
There is no merit in REPENTING.

NO MERIT
≠ NO SIGNIFICANCE.

NO MERIT
≠ NO MEANING.

All the merit belongs to God, but He apparently finds great meaning and significance in our believing, confessing, and repenting.

There is great meaning when one of those free agents freely comes to the decision of believing in Christ.

There is great joy when one of His rebellious children freely decides to change his mind and come back to the Lord.

Phil 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell
[be concentrating] on these things.

Did it ever fill you with wonder that God cares what you think?

Rom 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

PHI 2:5
"Keep on thinking this [doctrine] within yourselves which was also resident in Christ Jesus,"

If we want to get the meaning of the story, we need to study what our Lord means by “repentance”.

μετανοοῡντι
present active participle

metanoeo

to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider

metanoeo in the New Testament means, according to Thayer:
“ to change one’s mind for the better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins”

It is often translated “repent” and here is where the trouble comes in. With its connotations, “repent” is a lousy English word to represent the Greek word metanoeo.

The English word “repent” carries with it some Latin baggage. “repent” shares its Latin root with another English word - that being “penitent ”, a person performing penance.

This is a compound word meta which is a preposition often used to indicate change or turn or transformation.

Followed by noeo

noeo
to exercise the mind (observe), i.e. (figuratively) to comprehend, heed:
1. to perceive with the mind, to understand: John 12:40
2. to think upon, heed, ponder, consider: Matt 24:15

A better way to translate metanoeo into our English would be to use words or expressions such as “reconsider”, “rethink”, “change your mind”, or “turn your thinking around”.

It has the connotation of a 180 degree turn. It means to recognize one’s previous decision, opinion, condition or direction as wrong, and to accept and move toward a new and right path in its place.

THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE

Point 1. The true meaning of the Greek word metanoeo is to change one’s thinking, or to change the mind.

The cognate noun metanoia means a change of mind, a conversion, a turning away.
It means literally “a turning about”, a mental turning around, a change of course, a change of direction, a change of attitude, purpose or decision.

Point 2: The definitive use of repentance.

When a person does not repent with regard to salvation (unbeliever) or Bible doctrine (believer), then their lifestyle is out of control due to evil in their life.