In the sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of repentance and faith in the Christian life. He explains that repentance involves turning towards God and acknowledging one's sins, while faith is the belief in God's promises and the acceptance of Jesus as Savior. The speaker also mentions the role of the law of God in showing people their need for repentance. He concludes by encouraging the audience to seek further understanding of repentance and faith and offers a DVD called "Sans la Trévan" as a resource.

If you know, or you don't know, I teach an intensive evangelization course. I've been traveling around Europe for a year now. The Lord has really opened the door to many countries. This year, no, I started in April 2011, and I've already done about 25 courses all over Europe. It's not just between the Calvary Chapel, but all the churches, all denominations. And I'm really happy. It's a fantastic response. It's something I never imagined could happen with an evangelization course. But this morning, I wanted to do something special with you, because you are my family. It's my family, it's my church. We're all brothers and sisters, all the churches I've visited. But you, in particular, are people who are like family to me. I wanted to do something special, and I prayed a lot. In fact, I prepared two messages, and then I decided it wasn't good. I did the third one, and I think it's going to be something I really want to share with you. I wanted to do something that you can keep in your heart, to help you in your Christian life. And for those who are not sure, if you don't know, if you want to come to Christ, maybe this message can help you. Peter suggested a theme, but he also gave me freedom. He told me, you can preach this, or you can do whatever you want. So I took the second option, I'm going to do whatever I want. This morning, we're not going to talk about evangelization, unfortunately. Almost. We're going to touch a little bit at the end. But I'm going to talk about something I found during my travels. Something I found in all the churches. There is a general misunderstanding of a very important concept. Something that is important for salvation. It's essential for salvation, but it's also something very important for our Christian life. By the way, I just want to thank you if you prayed for the intensive course, for the trips I made, for the ministry we did with evangelization. Thank you very much. If you haven't prayed, or if you don't know, I encourage you, I invite you to pray. It's something very important. So I found in all the churches a misunderstanding of a concept that is very important. In fact, it's something between life and death. This concept is called repentance. And repentance is something very important for Christians and non-Christians too. If you think this morning that you know everything about repentance, please give me your attention anyway. I'm sure that at the end you will be a little bit encouraged. You will find a challenge in this message. I have confidence with the help of the Lord that this message can help you. So we're going to talk about repentance. The real repentance. And that's what I found a little bit everywhere. People don't know very well what it is. Or they have a misunderstanding. They think it's one thing, but in fact it's another thing. We're going to talk about the real repentance. So if you have a Bible, we're going to go to Acts 20, verses 20 and 21. Okay? This is the translation of Luke 2, verse 1210. He says, This is Paul speaking. He says, So Paul is speaking to this little group of ancients in Ephesus. He is ready to go to Jerusalem. He gives the last instructions. It's like the last word that Paul is going to give to his own church. So it's something that is very important to him. Okay? It's like me this morning, or this last day, I thought, What can I share with my church? If this is the last time I speak to you, then this message is the same as Paul said. We're going to talk about repentance and faith. These are the two things that are necessary for salvation. Repentance and faith. I think this morning, we're not going to have time to go to faith, but we're only going to talk about repentance. Maybe next year, if Peter takes another trip, I could share something about faith. But today, it's repentance. So Paul is expressing his heart. What is he going to say? It's the last words of Paul to this church. He knew that he was going to go to Jerusalem, that he was going to find problems, persecution, maybe death. In verse 26, a little lower, he says, he knows that it's the last time he's going to see this church. And he takes the time to talk about repentance and faith. Why? Because it's really important. A good understanding of repentance and faith for salvation and for Christian life as well. So he says that he preached, that he announced repentance to God and faith to our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he continues to say that he's going to find problems, etc. And he says in verse 24, But I do not make for myself any case of my life, as if it were precious, for you that I accomplish my race with joy, and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to announce the good news of the grace of God. His ministry was to announce the good news. But our understanding of this good news is not complete if we do not have a good understanding of repentance and faith. In other words, repentance and faith are part of the good news. In verse 24, he said that he announced the good news. And in verse 21, he said that he announced repentance and faith. Do you understand? Repentance and faith are part of the good news of the Gospel. Because repentance and faith are the two necessary things for salvation. And it's actually the same thing, but it's different. It's like the two sides of the same coin. It's the same thing, but it's different. And then Paul continues in verses 25 and 27, And now behold, I know that you will no longer see my face, all of you in the midst of which I have been preaching, what? The kingdom of God. That is why I declare to you today that I am pure of the blood of you all, because I have announced to you all the counsel of God, without hiding anything. Paul says that he has announced everything, that he is free of blood, that he is innocent. He has given enough information for people to be saved. He has preached, he has announced repentance and faith. So, today's topic, as I said, is true repentance. And faith, perhaps next year. There is really a great emphasis, it is very important in Scripture, the word repentance. In all the sermons, in all the occasions that a group preaches, there is the word repentance. In fact, if you look, what was the first word, the first message of John the Baptist? It was repentance, Matthew 3.1. Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is near. What was the first sentence, the first idea of Jesus in his ministry? Mark 1.14. Repent ye, and believe the good news. Repentance and faith. Repent and believe. What was the first thing that the disciples preached? Mark 6.10. Jesus gives instructions, and in verse 12, the disciples leave, and they preach repentance. What was the instruction of Jesus after the resurrection? Luke 24.46-47. Jesus says, And that repentance and the forgiveness of sins shall be preached in his name to all nations. Repentance. This was also the first Christian sermon. In Acts 2.38, Peter tells them, Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptized. The first message of Paul, Acts 26.19, he speaks with the kings of Agrippa, and he ends by saying that we must practice the works worthy of repentance. Repentance is not only something important or necessary, indispensable for salvation, it is also something important and indispensable for Christian life, for maturity, for progress in your sanctification. I want to divide this message into two parts. In the first part, we will see what repentance is for us, a church, people who are born again. You are saved, you have the Holy Spirit in you, so you are born again. This first part is for you. What is repentance for you, my brothers and sisters of Calvary Chapel? And then the second part will be, what is repentance, or the importance of repentance for someone who is not saved, who is not yet a Christian. We start with repentance for a believer. And I have prepared this because I think it is very important for you to know, for all of us, to understand that repentance is something for our daily life. Someone prayed this morning, he asked for help for repentance every day. So, we will start slowly. We start with the ministry of John the Baptist, Luke 3. They say that he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, Luke 3. And in fact, the function, the reason of John the Baptist to be was to preach repentance, to prepare the way, and to signal who was the Messiah, the Christ. These were the two functions of John the Baptist. To prepare the way with repentance, with his preaching of repentance, and finally to say, OK, he is the Messiah, he is the Christ. These were the two functions of John the Baptist. And John, when he preached repentance, he said that without repentance, there is no remission of sins. If you want to have your sins forgiven, you have to repent, John the Baptist said. And also afterwards, he said, OK, now if you know repentance, now I will show you the Messiah. You have to believe in him. John the Baptist had this message. You have to repent for the remission of sins, and now I will show you the Christ. It is him, you have to believe in him, you have to trust him. Repentance is faith, both sides of the same coin. This was the message of John the Baptist, and you know what? The message is the same today. The message today that we have to preach, that we have to preach to ourselves, is the same thing. We have to repent, and we have to go to Jesus, to Christ. These were the two functions of John the Baptist, and the message is the same for us. Repentance, the word repentance, it comes from the Greek word metanoia, which really means a change of idea, a change of opinion. But it is not only a change of opinion, it is also a change of direction. I can change my opinion. I can say, OK, I thought at the time, I thought that abortion was good, but now I think it is not good enough. The real repentance is not only a change of opinion, but it is also walking on the other side. If we walked to the north, now we are going to walk to the south. The real repentance is something that comes from our heart. In fact, it is a gift from God. 2 Timothy 2.25 says that repentance is actually to be given by God. The real repentance. So you, you are born again, we are all here, brothers and sisters, we are saved, I hope, OK? We had this real repentance one day. We saw our sin as something terrible, and we said, OK, I will let it go, I don't want it anymore, I repent of it, and now I am going to change my mind, I am going to walk on the other side, and I put my trust in Jesus for my salvation. In these moments, it is something that is called being born again. We have the Holy Spirit in us, and we did it once. But repentance is not a vaccination. It is not something that you did on April 1, 1990, and that's it. No. It is something that we have to do every day of our life. We had the real repentance, the change of heart one day, but from that, we have to continue our growth in sanctification, our growth in understanding the holiness of God, and that will give us even more repentance for the things we did before, but also for the things we do every day of our life. So, if we have this growth, this progression in our understanding and our practice of repentance, it is a good sign. It means that we have an understanding that we are growing in our path, in our sanctification with God. The book of Hebrews gives us the instruction to go towards holiness. OK, you are saved. That's good. But now, the book of Hebrews says that we have to continue, we have to progress. Hebrews 12, 14. Make all your efforts to be in peace with everyone and to lead a life that is more and more holy. Make all your efforts to do it. Then it says, without which no one will see the Lord. OK, once again, we were saved, we repented, we let go of our sins, and now we are born again. We have a progression towards sanctification, or through sanctification, and we must have a constant repentance. Because the little sin that we had when we were born again, our first day as Christians, now it must look like something terrible, because we have grown in this progression, this process of sanctification. We know much more about the holiness of God. We know much more about the gravity of our sin, how we are sinners, how we need the grace of God. So, it's a process. We are growing towards sanctification. And a proof that we are saved, is that we always have repentance, that we always have this desire to repent of our little sin, of our big sin. And we all have sins in our lives. We are Christians, we are born again, but I think I woke up at 7 o'clock, now it's 11 o'clock, and I think I have sinned 10 times, I don't know. But we still have this nature. And now, when I'm going to pray, I'm going to repent of these 10 sins that I have committed in 4 hours, maybe. And we all have, if you understand what I'm saying, you will do it too. You will understand that your life is not perfect, and you need to have repentance every day. Because this is a sign that you are growing towards sanctification. But at the time of John the Baptist, he had a problem. Repentance was not a deep thing. People didn't take repentance seriously. They were hypocrites. They were people who said or thought, yes, ok, I know that tonight I'm going to sin, but it doesn't matter because I know that after, God is going to forgive me. I'm just going to go to the temple, I'm going to make a sacrifice. So he had a culture of hypocrisy. These were people who knew that they were going to sin, and then they said, ok, it doesn't matter, I'm going to have repentance and I'll come back after my sin. And this repentance was not deep. It's a problem. It's something very, it's terrifying in the Bible. Matthew 7.22 gives us a, how do you say, it tells us that we need to be careful. Many will tell me on that day, Lord, Lord, we didn't prophesy by your name, we didn't cast out demons by your name, and we didn't do a lot of miracles by your name. So I will say it openly, I never told you to withdraw from me you who commit iniquity. You who commit iniquity also translates as you who continue to sin or you who transgress the law, you who continue to sin. It's someone who had repentance, but it wasn't true. It was a hypocrite. It was someone who just played religion, who said, ok, I repent, but after tomorrow, in five months, I will do it again, because I know that God will forgive me. That's not true repentance. That's someone who is, how do you say, flirting, flirting, flirting with his sin. It's someone who says, ok, today yes, tomorrow no, etc. It's someone who loves his sin and he just wants to have a little religious experience and then he comes back. So there is, in the book of Titus, in verse 16, he also writes, those who prophesy know God, but his life, his actions, they say the opposite. In Timothy 2.19, he also speaks of those who have the name of Christ, who say, yes, I believe, but their actions, they say the opposite. In Acts chapter 8, if we have the story of Simon the sorcerer, the Bible says that he believed, and even he baptized himself, but his repentance was not true. The Bible says that his heart was not correct, he was not right with God. And today, in our churches, in the churches I know when I travel, there are many people who do not understand this true repentance. People who are dropped for a moment, but then they come back. But why do they come back? Because they do not have a true desire to follow Jesus, to pursue, to drop their sin. Repentance is a detour. You have to detour from your sin 180 degrees. But you cannot turn completely if you do not leave what is on this side. So, here I have my sin, and it is on the other side. I say, OK, I will repent. I can't do that and leave my left hand on the other side. So, repentance is really to turn totally 180 degrees and embrace God, take him completely. It is important to say that you have to turn towards God, because there is also repentance like that. Repentance that says, OK, I will leave, for example, someone who deceives his wife, OK, someone who has an affair, OK, he says, OK, I will stop that. Now, I will not do that anymore. Now, I will just go towards pornography. Then, we say, OK, I will not do that anymore. OK, I will just convulse with my eyes. I will just look. OK, I will not do that anymore. Now, I will fish with my heart. I will just get drunk or smoke a cigarette. I don't know, bad things too. So, repentance is not that. Repentance is to leave the sin to embrace God. We cannot change the sin for another sin. And that's it, when there is the concept, the idea of faith too, because to make this change of direction, to leave the sin and turn to God, we have faith. OK, to turn to God means to have faith, to have confidence in God, that he is more powerful, more good, he gives more satisfaction than all the sins in the world. So, true repentance, to have true repentance, we need to have a clear conception, a clear idea of God's holiness. You know that God asks perfection in your words, your thoughts, your actions. Why? Because he is perfect, he is holy. This morning, when we were driving, we were interviewed on the radio and someone said, God cannot accept you because he lives in another kingdom. It's as if I love my little fish a lot there. I cannot dive and live with him even if I love him a lot. I cannot get him out of there because we live in two totally different This is how it is with God. He is perfect, perfect and holy. We cannot accept ourselves if we have a little sin. So, if we understand God's holiness, his perfection, we will have true repentance. And repentance is also a commandment. Acts 17, 30 says that God commands us to repent. Why? Because he will judge the earth unjustly. Why is repentance a commandment? Let me explain it to you like this. If I see that my son is playing on the street, he has his truck coming towards him, I don't want to invite him to get out of the street. I want to command him. I want to shout at him. I want to tell him, move! Get out of there! God is commanding in the same way because there is this truck coming towards us. This is the judgment. Acts 17, 30 God commands because he loves us. Because he knows that if we stay in our sin, we will perish. We will be crushed by this truck. So, repentance is also a commandment. He commands all men in all places to repent. Why? Because he loves you. Because he loves us. This was the message of Jesus, of John the Baptist, of his apostles. If we have true repentance, the Bible says that God will give us a new heart. He will change our heart from stone to a flesh heart. He will give us new desires. We will start to hate what we loved before and we will love what we hate after. In my life, my conversion was like that. It was something like that, night and day. The night before, I never really loved my sin. The day after, I could even vomit thoughts after I did the night before. This is true repentance. Repentance gives you a new heart with new desires. Charles Spurgeon, the 15th preacher, said, Repentance is the discovery of evil which characterizes sin as mourning for what we have done and the decision to abandon this sin. In fact, it is a very profound and at the same time concrete practice that makes man love what he hated before and hate what he loved before. This is a little definition of repentance. Why did I choose this message for you this morning? Because the Bible, Paul, he spoke to the Corinthians. In Corinthians 13, verse 5, he said, Examine yourselves and see if you are in faith and prove yourselves. This is my message, my exhortation this morning. I invite you to examine yourselves to see if you have true repentance when you were converted, when you were saved. And also to continue to have this repentance, to grow in your knowledge of the holiness of God, to have a progression in your Christian life. We cannot grow without having repentance every day. As I said, the proof that you are born again is that you continue to have this repentance. It is not a one-day thing. No, we continue to have repentance because we are growing in our own holiness. God commands that we have this repentance for salvation, but also in our life. Why do we as Christians have to have repentance? Why is it important to understand repentance in our daily life? It is because it is a commandment and it gives us the opportunity to grow in our walk with God. The second thing this morning is repentance for a non-believer. Why is it important to understand repentance for a non-believer? For a non-believer, for your friends, or if there is someone here who is not sure, we must first understand what sin is. How can we repent of something we do not know? In John 3, 4, they give us the perfect definition of sin. They say sin is the transgression of the law. If we want to understand what sin is, sin is the transgression of the law. What is the law? The moral law of God, the Ten Commandments. A non-believer must also understand that the Ten Commandments, the law of God, the moral law, is the standard that God uses to determine if we are good people, good people, if we are perfect. If you have never violated the Ten Commandments, then you are perfect. I think no one has done it. The Bible says that no one can keep the law. And that is why God gave it. So that we can go and ask forgiveness, so that we can go and ask His grace, His mercy. Because no one can be perfect according to the standard of God. Repentance for a non-believer is very important because if he comes to church, or even if he prays, if he says he knows God, but he has not had true repentance, if he has not had a good understanding of his sin, he has come to church for other reasons. Maybe because he has the coffee afterwards, maybe because the praise is good, maybe because he has friends here. He comes to church for another reason that is not really the desire to grow, to know God. True repentance, to have true repentance for a non-believer, he must understand his sin. Otherwise, we will have something very tragic, which is called a false conversion. Someone who professes the name of Christ but does not really know it. He does not know the reason why he came to save us. He has no idea. And here, we are going to talk a little bit about evangelization. Because if you have non-Christian friends and you want them to come to church, it is easy to make them come. You just have to tell them that we have good news, good coffee, and afterwards we are going to have a picnic. Carol of Romania is coming. That is good. But if you really want them to have an understanding of Christianity, of your Lord, of your God, then you have to start by explaining the law. You have to start by explaining the demand for the perfection of God. God is perfect. He cannot take you if you are dirty, if you are impious, if you are not perfect. Romans 7, Galatians 3.24, Romans 3.19-20, these are just a few passages that talk about the function of the law in evangelization. The law is given to show us that we are not perfect, that we are not good people. And that if we are judged according to the standards of God, we are going to go to hell. We are all criminals who have transgressed the law of God. If we have never stolen, if we have never lied, if we have never looked at a woman with desire, we have also violated the 7th commandment. Jesus said in the 7th commandment that we should not kill, but Jesus said that if we hate someone, it is as if we killed with our heart. So if we have never hated someone, God sees us as a murderer. A non-believer has to understand this in order to say later that this is what I do wrong, this is what I hate, so I will repent, I will turn away from my sin. If you go to the park today, you can ask ten people if they think they are good people. Ten non-believers, if you are a good person, they will say, yes, of course, yes, I am a good person. Why? Because they use human standards. They say, if I have never killed someone, if I pay my taxes, if I cheat on my wife, if I do this and that, yes, I am a good person. I am not like Adolf Hitler or someone bad. But if we use the standards of God, we see that we are not good people. And that is why we need someone to save us. If God is good and perfect, he must punish sin. That is why a non-believer must repent, turn away from his sin and put his trust in Jesus. John Wycliffe, a translator of the 14th century said, if you do not follow the law in your presentation of the gospel, you will fill your church with false converts, people who come to the church for bad reasons, not for the real reason of the gospel. I will give you an example. If I say a little lie to my little son, my son Alexander, it does nothing. I say a lie to my son, it does nothing. I have no punishment. If I say a little lie to my wife, maybe I will sleep in the living room of my apartment, on the sofa, on the couch. If I say a lie to my boss at work, maybe he will fire me. If I say a lie to the President of the Republic, maybe I will go to prison. If I say a lie to God, I will go to hell. It is exactly the same crime, it is exactly the same sin. What changes is the degree of importance or the degree of holiness of each person. So, we must explain to non-believers that sin, little lies, is not something that we do to offend someone else. It is really against God. That is why Paul, in our text at the beginning, said that he taught repentance to God. Because it is God who is affected, it is God who is judging. And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the lie, it is our sin that we do every day, it is something against God, against God who is all-holy, all-powerful. So, we will finish, I will make a conclusion. Repentance, for believers, it must be something every day. We must ask God to continue to purify our hearts. You have been saved. Congratulations, that's good. But now, we must progress in your path, your walk with the Lord. How do we do that? With a better understanding of the holiness of God and how it is terrible, how dirty our sin is. So, repentance must be something every day, every moment. Ask God to give you this purification in your heart to see your sin in reality, to see the holiness of God, to continue to repent, to progress in your sanctification, your path with God. And that's what I wanted to encourage you to do. To analyze your life and see, number one, if you really know the true repentance at the beginning, and if yes, to continue a walk with repentance, to continue from here to every day of your life. We will never arrive to be 100% perfect in our life, in this life here, and that's why we must have repentance every day. At the moment when you will see the magnitude or the weight of your sin, how big and terrible it is, at that moment you will also see how great and precious it is, the grace of God, the hand of God, that was so great and so strong to balance, to cover all these sins. So we must really have a good understanding of this sin and the holiness of God, to then understand the great grace how rich it is in his body to save us all, to cover all these sins. Luke 7, 47 But he who is all forgiven does not love. If you understand how great you are, you are forgiven of something so great, then you will love much more than today. And for the non-believers, the conclusion is how can we repent of something how can we repent of something that we love? How can someone repent of flying, of hiding his skin, of having a wife? How can we do it? If we fly, we have a profit. How can I repent of this if I win when I fly? How can I repent of having a wife if I win when I do this? The Bible says that there is pleasure in sin. How can we do it? The answer is, you cannot. In the same way that Peter could not walk on water, in the same way that Lazarus could not get out of the tomb, you cannot leave your sin. It is a supernatural thing that comes from God. You just have to ask Him. It is God who will help you to do it. It is God who can do it for you. You just have to have the attitude of repentance, the need to repent and say, God, yes, I understand how I have sinned. I don't want to do it anymore. Give me a new heart. And you have the promise in the Bible that God will do it. For non-believers, the sinner must repent. He must have a direction towards God, repentance and faith. And we, as believers, we already have the tools or the message to help these people to repent. This message or this tool is called the law of God, the ten commandments that show us the standards of God. You just have to show them that they are not good people. You just have to show them that they are sinners. And then you must repent. You must turn to God. These are the two conclusions. I hope it will be useful for you. And just before leaving, I brought this DVD. It is called 580. I participated in the production of this DVD. I brought 10 copies. I will give it to anyone who wants it. The problem is that it is only in English. If you understand a little English, please take it. If you go to see it with a friend, or you want to give it to another person, you can take it. Or maybe you can lend it to each other. But if you do not understand English at all, you just have to go to the website 580movie.com and there is a French subtitle in 30 languages. So I encourage you. It is called 580. It does not specifically talk about repentance, but it is very interesting. There are 3 million people who have seen it on YouTube. So I encourage you to take 5 copies. And then regarding the message I gave this morning, if you have any questions, if you want to talk with Nancy or with Pierre when he comes back, I would be happy to answer your questions. And if not, I hope we will meet again next year if Pierre goes on vacation. And I will tell you about the second thing we need for salvation. Today we had repentance, and the second thing is faith. Now we will pray. I just want to pray for the course this morning, and then we will see, we will have James too. So we pray. Lord, thank you for this opportunity to share with my brothers and sisters. I pray that this year that we have spent together is not a vain one, that there is really truth in what I have said, that it can help them, that it can make a difference in their path, in their walk with God. For the non-believers too, I pray that there is someone here that you compel, that you show your holiness so that they have true repentance and that they turn with you. For the rest, for us believers, I pray that you use us to bring others to Christ, to your kingdom. Thank you for this opportunity. I pray for each of my brothers and sisters. Thank you in the name of Jesus.