Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the critical need for genuine repentance in the church, warning that without it, believers risk spiritual stagnation and hardening of the heart. He explains that true repentance goes beyond mere remorse or feeling sorry for sins; it requires a heartfelt change and commitment to God. Beach urges the congregation to reflect on their spiritual condition and to seek a lifestyle of repentance, as it is essential for continuing to grow in faith and to be used by God. He highlights that God's mercy calls us to turn back to Him, and that unrepentant hearts can lead to spiritual captivity. The sermon concludes with a call to action for individuals to seek accountability and support from one another in their journey of repentance.

Father, we thank you for your kindness and your goodness that you so freely showed us by sending your son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. We truly do thank you, Lord, that there is provision for forgiveness at the cross. Lord, our hearts are filled with gratitude as we consider what we are deserving of. Hell, damnation and eternal punishment, but what we have received because. Of your kindness and your sending your son who died. And was punished. For our sins. Now, father, I pray that you'll help us to all hear your word today. That you'll give us the capacity to receive your word. And that you'll help us, Lord, to understand the cry of your heart toward each one of us who represent the church here today, Lord. We ask for the Holy Spirit to do what only he can do in our hearts. We pray for Jesus sake, amen and amen. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to ask you to just try and give the Lord your undivided attention for the next few moments, as the Lord. Has a very, very important word that he wants to share with us today, one that every one of us must, must be able to receive into our hearts and into our spirits. OK, now, teenagers, listen, young people, listen, I want you to try and pay attention because this is not hard to understand. This is something that. Christopher and Philip and Michael and maybe even Jonathan can understand. OK. It's very important, and Ben, you guys are old enough to understand. We're going to begin. This word. And we're going to continue this as God leads. And the name of this is God's house is in ruin, God's house is in ruin. OK, now. Before we even begin to lay the foundation of. This burden in the heart of the Lord, his house is lying in ruin. We have to first be able to understand that when we hear God's word in relation to his house being in ruin, we must be able to repent. Now, I want to ask everyone a question here. This is probably as far as we're going to get this morning. I want to ask everyone a question here, and I want you to please ask yourself this question. Do you personally understand what it means to repent? Now, I'm sure that many of us have different ideas of what repentance is. Let me say this very quickly. Listen, if you are are no longer able to repent, you are no longer able to go on with the Lord. And if you cannot go on with the Lord, you will not stand still, you'll go backwards. There's no going on with the Lord without repentance and there's no standing still. And so ask yourself this question, when was the last time I experienced genuine repentance? If you can't remember the last time that you repented, brothers and sisters, you need to fear. Now, we're going to make it very clear that when Jesus talks about repentance, he doesn't simply mean feeling sorry for your sin. He doesn't mean feeling bad that you did something wrong either to the Lord or to someone else. That is not repentance. Now, let me ask you a question, how many have, within the last three weeks, felt bad about something you've done? And you thought that that was repenting? It's not. Now, feeling bad might be part of repentance, but repentance goes way beyond feeling bad about something. And we can't even receive the Lord's Word if we don't have a heart of repentance. Matter of fact, it'd be better if we didn't hear God's Word than to hear it without a repenting heart. Because it brings us into a greater accountability, we come to more light. And if we come to more light and we become more accountable before God, and we're not repenting and fulfilling the meaning of the word repentance, then we're actually, in fact, becoming harder. And so, this is the foundation that we want to lay for today's Word, that we must get into our hearts. This has got to become a grace that is working in our life every day. Listen, there is unrepentant sin in our life. And God cries out to those in unrepentant sin daily to turn to Him. And if we don't, the Lord will turn from us. Again, the issue, when it has to do with those who have trusted Christ as Savior, is not salvation. The issue is going on with the Lord. The issue is continuing to hear His Word. The issue is continuing to be blessed to receive more of the Lord's fullness, more of the Lord's heart, more of the Lord's thought, and being instruments that the Lord uses in this last hour that we're in. The Lord will not use people, whether it's individuals or whether it's a corporate group of people, where there's no repentance. The Lord will not use people who do not repent. It doesn't matter how much Bible knowledge you have. It doesn't matter how much you have been taught. It doesn't matter whether you have listened to Bible tapes, whether you have gotten Bible tapes from the greatest Bible teachers that live today. It doesn't matter if you've read the greatest books by the greatest men that have lived in the past hundred years. It doesn't matter if you understand, in theory, what the Lord is doing, and you can go through your Bible, and you can even show others what God is doing. If you do not have a heart of repentance before God and before your brothers and sisters, you and I are in danger of being hardened in our heart, and in danger of being rejected by the Lord as far as instruments to be used for His purpose. An unrepentant heart is a heart that takes lightly the things of God. An unrepentant heart is a heart that sniffs at the things of God. An unrepentant heart is a heart that takes lightly the Word of God. It takes lightly the hearing of the Word of God. Something that Suzanne mentioned at the end of her brief little testimony, exhortation, she said, what the Lord has is a treasure. And she says that we're not going to find it unless we're seeking. That's entirely true. But let me say something, brothers and sisters. Everybody here is seeking after something. You see, there is a treasure in your life. You are seeking after something. But if it's not the Lord, then you're spending your time, your energy, your thoughts, and your priorities are arranged around the treasure of your life. The Lord stands in our midst day after day, week after week, moment after moment, and with His piercing eyes, His piercing eyes, He looks into the depths of our heart, and He says, do I have your undivided attention? Am I the treasure that you value more than anything else? And are you proving that by pursuing after the Lord with all your heart? What is the first and greatest commandment? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy strength, with all thy mind, and with all thy soul. And what is the second like unto it? Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, for upon these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And so what Jesus was saying was, the whole law and all the message of the prophets is all gathered up and fulfilled in two spiritual realities. Number one, God's people are to love God with all their beings, and number two, we are to love our neighbor as ourself. Now listen, anything short, oh God help us to hear, anything short of loving God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our strength, all of our soul, all of our being, all of our passions, all of our dreams, all of our love, anything short of that is sin. The definition of sin is to fall short. It's to miss the mark. It's sin. And what are Christians supposed to do with sin? Repent. Repent of sin. As Christians are we called to live in sin? Of course not. But we in fact do live in sin. When the condition of our heart and the condition of our life is such that the Lord shows us in His Word, shows us by His Holy Spirit, that something is distracting us. Listen carefully. Something is distracting us. Something has gotten in the way of our passionate love for Him. And rather than fall down on our knees, trembling in holy fear before a holy God, and begging God to grant us the grace and the power to forsake this thing, what do we do? We feel sorry. But we don't repent. We talk about it. But we don't repent. Or we maybe convince ourselves that God knows I'm only human, and I can't be perfect. Love speaks of a commitment. Listen carefully. If we say we love someone, but are unwilling to make any kind of commitment to them, what we say is actually false. When we say that we love someone without commitment, we merely desire them. They may appeal to us, or we might want something from them. But true love, on the other hand, which is the kind of love that God commands, involves a commitment, a commitment, an absolute devotion. We see this in marriage. In God's sight, the only difference, listen, the only difference between a physical relationship in marriage and outside of marriage is what? Commitment. You are absolutely committed to your partner. When God speaks of loving him with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, He is not speaking about a warm, cozy feeling, but about something which involves a commitment. This is what a covenant is. And this is what we are called to live. Now listen, brothers and sisters, listen. This is why it is imperative that we live with a heart of repentance. Because if we are walking in the light as He is in the light, and we are in fellowship one with another, and the light of God's Word is daily shining into our being, what are we going to be seeing constantly? We're going to be seeing the sin of falling short of loving God with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul. We're going to see falling short of loving our neighbor as ourselves. And if we don't have a repentant heart, we'll simply blow it off. We'll blow it off. It won't trouble us. It won't stir us. And brothers and sisters, there is nothing more dangerous than to be a child of God and claim to be a Christian and not be troubled over your spiritual condition. There's nothing worse. In Matthew 4, verse 17. The very first public words that came out of the mouth of Jesus. Brothers and sisters, please listen. If you're going to grow as a Christian, if you're going to grow in your capacity to have meaningful fellowship with other believers, we must learn the grace of repentance. Listen, God is calling every one of us today to repent. Are we hearing Him or not? Verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. There's the first words that Jesus ever spoke publicly. Repent. Now, why did Jesus say repent in this place? He said repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven represents the rule of God. The kingdom of heaven represents the rule of heaven. The kingdom of heaven represents God's will on earth. The kingdom of heaven represents all of those things that are pleasing to God. All of those things that are like God. Jesus came to bring to you and I a revelation of what God was like and what He required of us. But what do we see when Jesus shines His light into our heart and says, Behold, the kingdom of God is at hand? What do we see? We see the kingdom of man. We see the kingdom of self. We see the kingdom of sin. We see self-centered, stiff-necked, rebellious people who want their own way. Who are living for self, not for God. Who are fulfilling the passionate desires of sin and self-centeredness rather than the selfless desire to serve God and fulfill His will. And therefore Jesus says, Repent. See, Jesus knew that as soon as the light of heaven shone within the heart of a man, it would be necessary that he repent. Because light exposes darkness. Light exposes the fact that we are self-centered, self-seeking, self-fulfilling individuals. And so the process of spiritual maturity and spiritual growth includes continuously, listen, continuously living in the light of God's Word, in the light of Jesus Christ, in the light of the Holy Spirit, who is shining more and more and more what? The light of His Word. The light of His righteousness into our life. And it's necessitating what? A life of continual repentance. Now what happens when God's light shines into your heart and into my heart and we don't repent? What happens? Our heart becomes hardened. Now, does our religion stop? Does our outward form stop? Does our smiles go away? But something begins to happen on the inside of our life when we are confronted with light, bright light from God's Word, and we fail to repent. We're going to look at what repent means in a moment. We fail to repent. And the light comes over and over and over again. It comes as we go to God's Word. It comes when we hear the Word of God being preached or being taught. It comes when we're fellowshipping one with another and a brother or a sister speaks the Word of God and we begin to see and hear and feel that light. And it begins to expose some kind of darkness in our life. What happens when we don't have a repentant heart? What happens when we hear and see the light, but it doesn't change us? We become terribly in danger of being hardened in our heart. And when we become hardened in our heart, we begin to want our own way rather than God's way. Listen, brothers and sisters. We begin to want our own way rather than God's way. But because God is merciful, many times He doesn't give us our own way, but He keeps crying out to us. All you have to do is read the prophets in the Old Testament. Day after day, week after week, month after month, God raised up prophets. God raised up prophets. Who did He raise them up to? The ungodly nations? No, He raised them up to His own people. His own people. He raised up prophets. He raised up judges. And what did these people do? They cried out, O Israel! O house of Judah! O house of Israel! O chosen people! Only acknowledge your sin. Amend your ways. Change your ways. Turn back to the Lord, and He will turn to you. You see, the fundamental problem with the nation of Israel was that they had great light, but they wouldn't let the light change them. They gloried in the light. They boasted in the light. They boasted that they were the great nation that God had chosen. That their father was Abraham. That their prophet was Moses. That God had done great signs and wonders for them. But their hearts had become hardened. And eventually what happened? God gave them exactly what they wanted. He gave them what they wanted, and they went into captivity. The bottom line, listen carefully. When we fail to maintain before God, through grace and through the Holy Spirit, a repentant heart, God will reach out over and over and over again to us, because He's a merciful God. He will cry out over and over again. Listen, He will speak to us in His Word. He will speak to us with brothers and sisters. He will speak to us through prophets, through apostles. He'll speak to us in every possible way. But if we continue in an unrepentant heart, there may come a time when God says, I have spoken over and over and over to you, and I have cried out over and over and over to you, and you continue to disregard My Word, I am now going to turn you over to the thing that you wouldn't let go of. And that will bring you into captivity. And not only does God do that, but number two, remember three weeks ago, the open heaven? What happens to the open heaven? It closes right up. You will no longer hear the Word of God. God will take His Word from you. Now, you might continue to read this Bible. You might continue to know Bible doctrine. But the Word, the Rehmeh, the Living Word, the open heaven, where the eyes of your heart are seeing the Lord, and the ears of your heart are hearing what God is saying, God will take it from you. That's removing your candlestick. That's it right there. How important it is to walk in repentance before God. Brothers and sisters, we need to pray that God softens our heart, because we actually are not concerned over the fact that our hearts are hard, and that we don't live in repentance. We're not concerned about it. It doesn't really trouble us. We haven't seen the danger of what it means to get a heart, to have a heart, that takes lightly the things of God. Jesus said, repent, the kingdom of God is at hand. Second Corinthians, Paul, who had a great shepherd's heart for the flock in Corinth, who was a true servant of the Lord, a true servant of the Lord, who, because of the grace of God, listen, because of the grace of God, he had no interest but that of the Lord Jesus. Listen, he didn't want anything from the Corinthians. You can't say that about many preachers today. They're not only interested in your welfare for the Lord. They want a lot more. They want your allegiance to them. They want your money. But Paul wasn't like that. And I thank God for the testimony of Paul in the Scriptures. He didn't want anything that the flock of God had. He wasn't interested in it. All he lived for was to see the flock passionately be devoted to the One who died for them. And out of that devotion, be devoted to one another in love. That's all he wanted to see. And it cost him a lot. It cost him a lot. But he considered what Jesus did and the little cost it cost him, couldn't compare. And he joyfully, joyfully accepted the trouble that came upon him because he wouldn't compromise. And here's what this man who had a shepherd's heart said to the Corinthian church. And this is what the Holy Spirit is saying to you and I and to the church abroad. This is what he's saying. Verse 14. How prophetic. Behold, the third time I am ready to come. Oh, how you can hear the prophetic word of the Lord. It's not the first time God has spoken to us. It's not the second time God has spoken to us. It's the third time He's been speaking. He's been crying out to us. He's been crying out to the body everywhere. Now watch. Watch, brothers and sisters. Hear the Lord's heart. This is the purity. This is the purity of what God wants to say. And this is the purity of what God wants to see in our life in relation to our relationships one with another. This ought to be the passion of our heart. This ought to mark the true believer, the true fellowship, the true ministry to the church. Right here it is. Mark it down. Highlight it. Write it down. This is what God is after. I am ready to come to you and I will not be burdensome to you. The true vessel, either singular or corporate, when it is relating to the body of Christ, does not seek to be a burden on anyone or anything. It is a selfless vessel. I don't seek to be a burden, Paul said. I'm not after something that you have. For I seek not yours, but you. True fellowship, true relatedness, true body relatedness one to another is free. Listen, it is free from the impure motive of seeking something that someone has. We don't want what someone has. We want one another's hearts. We want true koinonia, true fellowship in the light. We want the Lord's interest. We want the Lord's house to be built. We want the Lord Jesus Christ to be built up in our life. Paul said I'm after one thing when I look at you Corinthians. I'm after one thing. I want to see a temple, a spiritual temple where the Lord Jesus Christ has absolute preeminence in all things. For the children are not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. There's the test of maturity right there. When people come into spiritual maturity, they give of themselves to others, and they don't expect others to give to them. In a relationship, if you stumble with your friendships or in your marriage, because you just feel that you're the only one that ever gives and nobody gives to you, well, that means you've got a bottle in your mouth. And you've got pampers on. That means you are spiritually immature. Now, that might be okay if you're supposed to be, but if you were supposed to have grown up ten years ago and you're still carrying around that bottle and you're still complaining about how nobody cares about me. I've got to always do it myself. This isn't fair. How many have heard that? This is not fair. Oh, well, since when is life fair? Can we have a heart-to-heart talk, brothers and sisters? Since when is life fair? If you're waiting for things to be fair, don't hold your breath. You'll turn blue and drop dead. It won't happen. You want to find the spiritual ones and the immature ones? Don't look for Bible doctrine. Don't look for people who can talk real fine and seem to be able to articulate spiritual things. No, find out in the long haul who endures and who keeps giving and giving and giving when no appreciation and no respect or no thanks or you're not getting anything out of it. How about this? You give and you end up losing. Then what happens? That's time to stop, right? When you lose. I mean, it's insane to keep giving even when you feel like you're losing. No. Those who are moved by God, those who are filled by Christ, give and give even to the pouring out of their soul and they don't care what they lose because their reward is where? Hallelujah to God. It's in heaven. I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. We have to move on because this is not really where we want to go. But oh my God, if we could just meditate on that Scripture. You want to know what the Christian life is all about, brothers and sisters? It's not about happy honeymoons and cozy fellowships where everybody is just so sweet one to another and everybody just loves one another and we're just oh so cozy. No. You want to know what the reality of the Christian experience is? And if you're not prepared for God to bring you to this reality, you'll always stumble in the body of Christ. You'll never ever grow and become the vessel that God wants you to be. Right here. Mark it. Write it down in your heart. Write it down on your Scripture memorization card and put it at the place where you go most often. The refrigerator. I mean if we went to God's Word as often as we opened that refrigerator, we would all be so spiritually fat right now. Wouldn't we? Yeah, we would. All right now. Here it is. Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. Isn't that a mystery? Here's the experience of the true, mature Christian. They come to where they learn how to love unconditionally and they serve by the power of God and they pour out their soul to everyone and they're loved even less. That's what is greatly deficient in the body of Christ today. This kind of spiritual stature. Right here. Because all of our love is conditional love. Okay. Verse 16. But He, be it so, I did not burden you, nevertheless being crafty I caught you with guile. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? The answer is no. I desired Titus, and with him sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? Walked we not in the same spirit? Oh brothers and sisters, what a need there is today for God to knit companies of believers together, hearts of believers together, who are of this same spirit right here. Who walk in the midst of the body of Christ together without any desire to get a gain. Paul had a man, Timothy was just like him. Paul knew that if he sent Timothy to the church in Ephesus or to the church in Corinth or to the church in Philippi, he knew that Timothy wouldn't go there and corrupt the gospel and get an impure motive and start trying to get something from the people. Build a little kingdom, get a little private following. He knew that if young Timothy went into the midst of the church, anywhere he sent him, anywhere, that that man would have the same heart passion that Paul had. He would be after nothing but the Lord's interest for that flock. You show me a group of believers where there's a few men with that kind of stature and I'll show you a place where God's heart is being satisfied. That's where God's heart is satisfied. Men who love and keep loving and don't stop loving and aren't concerned about losing everything in the process of loving. That's what God's after. Okay. Verse 20. For I fear less when I come to you. Isn't it ironic? A man of this stature and yet look at the spiritual stature of the Corinthians. Watch what his concern was. You wonder why he couldn't speak to them as grown-ups. You know, Paul kept saying to the Corinthians, I want to talk to you as men, as spiritually mature, but I can't because you're babes. You're little babies in Christ. Why? This is right here why. Watch. This is why. I fear less when I come I shall not find you such as I would and that I shall be found unto you such as you would not. In other words, Paul's saying, listen, when I come to you, I'm afraid that I'm going to see that you've not repented. And I'm afraid that you're going to see in me a man who doesn't come and walk in your midst and give you big hugs and say, oh, praise the Lord, everything's so well. It's so good to see you. No, you're going to see a man that's going to stand before you with the tears of Christ and say, what's going on here? Why haven't you repented? You need to be ashamed. Paul said, I'm going to come with a rod, a spanking. You don't want that. He says, and I don't want to come and see you in sin. This is what Paul's struggle was with the Corinthians. He knew that if the Corinthians didn't repent, they weren't going on with God. He knew it. And this is the heart of Christ right here for the church in this hour right now that we live in. Lest there be debates. That's quarreling. Envy. To make war against the good in another person. Envy. To be jealous of someone. To compare yourself with someone. And to see that you're not maybe like them, so you get angry at them. All this garbage was in the house of God. Wraths. Violent passion. Stripes. Backbiting. Defamation. That's what backbiting means. Speaking evil about people. Not being able to control your tongue. Whispering. Swellings. Tumulence. And lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you, that I should bewail. To deeply mourn. Many, listen, which have sinned already, past action, with present existing results. Got it? They sinned in the past. They failed to repent. And the results of the sin was presently plaguing them like cancer and gangrene. What sins in our life that we have not repented of is presently plaguing us and destroying us spiritually and destroying our children and destroying our fellowship one with another. Listen, can God move us on? There is so much in God's heart that He wants to unveil to us about the glories of Christ, about the unsearchable riches, but frankly, brothers and sisters, God can't say it to us. Like Suzanne said, He can't say it to us. We're spiritually dull of hearing. Why? We're not desperate for God. We're not desperate for God and we don't repent of our sin. We continue in it. We continue in our worldly divided hearts and we say, well, the Lord's a forgiving God. The Lord's merciful. And that's just what Paul said. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid that we should ever continue in sin assuming that God's grace will always be there. Okay. You've sinned and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness which you have committed. Bottom line. What is repentance? Listen carefully and we're going to close on this number. Repentance. Worldly sorrow. Godly repentance. The difference. Look. Worldly sorrow, right here. We feel sorry. We cry. We feel guilty. Etc, etc, etc. That's worldly sorrow. That is not repentance. Godly repentance is, number one, a change. A change in the heart, number one, and in the attitude and mind. When God requires and asks us to repent, He never, ever, ever refers to worldly sorrow. Where He wants us to feel sorry, He wants us to cry, or He wants us to feel guilty. Although we may feel sorry and cry and feel guilty if we are engaging in godly repentance. But the key element to repentance is a change in heart and attitude. A heart and attitude. So if Jesus shines light into our heart and shows us that there is something that we need to repent over, and we only feel sorry and feel guilty and maybe do a little crying, but we have not changed, then we have not repented. And if we have not repented, our hearts remain hard. And so, in closing today, I want to ask you, in the grace and mercy of God, has God spoken to you this morning? Has God spoken to you this morning and has shown you that somewhere in your life you've become distracted? You have fallen short of loving God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, and all your soul. Somewhere. Specifically. And number two, if that's true, are you crying out to God to truly repent? Rather than just feel sorry. Oh my. How sad. Where are you at today? Dear friend, dear brother, dear sister, where is your heart at today? I beg you, in the person and mercy of Jesus Christ, I beg you today, ask God to teach you how to repent. Ask God to give you a lifestyle of repentance. And ask God to give you the power, every time His Spirit shines in your life, to repent. And that means use. God will empower you to change, if you'll ask Him. And not only repent to God, but listen, when was the last time you repented to your brother or sister? Because you might have sinned against them. Husband, wife. Okay. Let's just let the Lord search our heart now. Repentance, Lord, is what we want. There's no moving on with God until we learn to repent. And if we don't learn to repent, God will move on without us. And that's His word. So may God help us in these next few moments to hear His heart. Anyone who wants to come forward for special prayer, come. We'll pray together and ask God to do this work in our hearts. Well, brothers and sisters, we have to go now, but please, let's be a people who stop feeling sorry. Stop crying crocodile tears. Let's get serious with God. Identify the areas in our life by prayer and being humble and ask the one closest to you. Say, do you have this kind of courage? Ask a brother or a sister, your husband or wife. If you're not married, ask someone that's close. I dare you. I double dare you to ask someone that loves you. Look at you in the eyes and say, would you tell me some of the areas in my life where you think I need to repent? And don't be defensive. And don't justify your sin. And don't say, oh yeah, well, that's what you think. But say, thank you. Would you pray with me and help me? Would you help me? I dare you to do that. We need one another. Everyone's got blind spots in their life. Everyone. And we need God's Word. We need the constant light of the Spirit of God. And we need the input of our brothers and sisters. I beg you. I beg you. Ask God to give you a repentant heart or else you or I will not move on with God. Do you want to go on with God and be a part of what He wants to do? Learn to repent. And run from anything and anyone who hinders your ability to repent. God bless you. May the Lord help us to get this in our heart. We love you.