counseling, and we're so glad that you've joined us on this webinar. Hope you had a wonderful Sunday worshiping our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our 17th class meeting, and we are working our way through the ACBC Theology exams. We are on Theology exam number 17 tonight, which has to do with the doctrine of repentance, and I trust that this is going to be a wonderful study for each of us, both to apply to our own lives and then also to use in counseling ministry to others.

So thank you so much for joining us tonight. I hope that your studies are going well and that the Lord is blessing your essay exams, and we're just so excited about all that the Lord is doing to train biblical counselors for His glory. We are here at Kindred about to open five dedicated counseling spaces that are soundproofed and private in our church offices, and I'm so excited to be able to show those offices to you, Lord willing, in the next couple weeks, and we're praying that God will fill those rooms with counselors who will be able to minister God's truth and His word to others, and this all is part of that process.

So thank you for your faithfulness and for your encouragement as we continue to work through this class. Well, as I mentioned, tonight we are looking at the doctrine of repentance tonight, which is a very important subject and also one that is very practical for each of our lives. Martin Luther has well said that our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance, and so all of life, according to Martin Luther, is repentance, and I think that is reflected in the essay exam that we'll look at tonight.

The Christian life begins with repentance, turning from sin and turning to Christ, and then the Christian progresses in the Christian life as the believer repents of sin and embraces Christ on a daily basis, and that is true for you. That is true for me as well. Each of us grow as we continue to repent of sin and as we continue to embrace Christ by faith, and that is true for our counselees.

Our counselees will make progress in the counseling issue that they face as they learn to repent of sin and embrace Christ by faith, and so this is a really an important topic for each of us to look at and to think deeply upon, and that is why this is in the theology essay exams.

Just far from being a kind of a morose and depressing subject, I hope you'll find that the doctrine of repentance really is the doctrine that leads us to joy. It is the doctrine that leads us to true blessing in Christ. I can't think of a more morose or depressing person than the Christian who does not repent of sin.

Repentance really is the path to joy, and I think that's reflected in David's statement in Psalm 32, verse 1, where David said, "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit," and then David goes on to describe a period of his life where he had hidden his sin from the Lord, and he describes this period as a period of spiritual misery, a period of spiritual depression.

He says in verse 3, "For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer," and so this period in which David did not repent of his sin was definitely a period in which he was lacking joy, but then in verse 5, we see David's repentance, and David says this, "I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.

I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." I think we see in that wonderful psalm that repentance was the key for David to experience joy and spiritual blessings in the Lord, and the same could be said to be true for you and for me.

We see that the doctrine of repentance is really connected with the truth of God's grace. God does a wonderful work of grace in the sinner's heart in opening the sinner's eyes and helping a person see his or her sin before the cross, and then helping that person to turn from sin and to embrace all that Christ has done for us through his work on the cross and his glorious resurrection.

This is a wonderful work of God that God performs in each person's heart, and it is the pathway to joy and blessing. So, I hope to kind of do away with this idea that to study repentance is to study this gloomy topic, this kind of brooding and morose spiritual topic that leads us just to kind of despair over our sin.

I hope you will embrace the doctrine of repentance as a doctrine that leads us to joy and to blessing. So, let me give us this introductory thought as we open our class together. I want to just read from 2 Timothy 2 verses 24 to 26, Paul's encouragement to Timothy, and then draw some implications, some applications to counseling ministry, and I love this passage.

By the way, my senior pastor, Philip DeCourcy, has a killer message on this from 2 Timothy 2 verses 24 to 26, and he preached that at the Master's Seminary Chapel and also at Kindred Church. I would encourage you to pick that up online or download that. It's for free, but he really did a great job expositing this passage, and it's a wonderful passage connecting the doctrine of repentance to how the Lord's servant ought to behave.

In that passage, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy this. He says, "And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will." I just want to focus on that one thought for a moment that repentance is the gift of God.

Repentance is a gift from God. You see there that Paul tells Timothy God may perhaps grant them repentance, meaning that God must work in a person's heart and grant them to see the enormity of their sin, grant them to see the work of Christ on the cross. He must grant them to, as Paul says here, come to their senses and grant them this work of grace in which they turn from their sin and they turn to follow Christ.

Repentance is a gift from God. Now, we call people to repentance, and you see throughout the New Testament Scriptures as well as the Old Testament Scriptures that the Bible calls people to repent of their sin, and so repentance is a human responsibility. We are given the responsibility to repent and to believe in Christ, but that truth needs to be balanced with this whole idea that repentance is the gift of God.

In other words, when you see a person repent of his or her sin, you are seeing the work of God in a person's heart. God is the one who grants repentance. Some other verses that are related to this theme include Romans 2, verse 4, where Paul says, "Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" In Acts 11, verse 18, says this, "When they heard these things, they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying then to the Gentiles, 'Also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.'" God is the one who grants repentance, so when you counsel someone and that counselee sees his or her sin and humbles himself before the cross, repents of sin, and has a changed life, what you don't do is go home and pat yourself on the back and say, "What a wonderful counselor I was.

It was my ability that meant the difference in leading this person to repentance." Now, God may have used you in a wonderful way, but ultimately what you do is you go home and you praise God, and you thank God that He has granted repentance to the person you are ministering to.

Now, what are the implications of this truth for the counselor's conduct, the truth that God is the one who grants repentance? Well, Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2, verse 24, "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome." We must not be quarrelsome. When we engage in counseling ministry with people, we are oftentimes working with people who are blinded to their own sin.

They can't see their own contribution to a conflict, for example, or they can't see how they have contributed to a difficult situation. Oftentimes, we deal with counselees who are really stubborn in not wanting to turn to the Lord in faith. You may even work with counselees who argue with you, or who dispute with you, or just who say they don't agree.

And even most painfully of all, at times, counselees will actually divert the attention from their own behavior by criticizing the counselor's qualifications or skill set. And so, some counselees even get real personal, and they blame you for their lack of repentance or spiritual growth. What you have to remember in those seasons and in those situations is that the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome.

We don't engage in this kind of prideful disputing. Instead, we pray that God will open the counselee's eyes to see their sin and to see their need of repentance. We don't allow the issue to become defending ourselves. But as Paul says, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone.

A word meaning to be gentle or mild or peaceable. The word kind was used to describe a medicine that was soothing or assuaging. And it says here that the Lord's bondservant must be kind to who? To everyone. Every counselee that you will minister to is a counselee that must be treated with kindness.

The Lord's bondservant must be able to teach patiently, enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. And then Paul says, "God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth that they may," and this is the same language that was used of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15, "that they may come to their senses." Sin is irrational.

People lose themselves when they are caught in sin. They don't know their way out. They lose all perspective on life. And they will even hurt anyone who tries to help them come out of that situation. But we pray for our counselees that they may come to their senses. That their hearts would be awakened with the truth of God's word.

And Paul even says, holds out the prospect of the person escaping from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. So there is spiritual warfare in the ministry of biblical counseling. We are fighting against the demonic realm, and we use the truth of God to work on people's hearts.

And so we engage in this ministry desiring to lead people to repentance, and we pray that God will grant them repentance. Now I've been very honest with you all in saying that I'm not an expert biblical counselor by any means. I have my share of failures and shortcomings in this ministry, but I have done it counseling enough to know that there are times in the counseling ministry where you're sitting with a believer in Christ, and you're opening God's word, and you're just conversing about the issues of life, and the Holy Spirit does a work in the counselee's heart.

And there's this aha moment, or there is some realization of the truth, or there is some understanding of something that the counseling never saw before, and there is a heart change that takes place. Even sitting with a married couple where they're at odds with one another and fighting and arguing over different things, and you minister the truth of God's word, and there's a moment in that counseling session where the husband or the wife reaches out and holds the other spouse's hand, and there is contrition, there is humility, there is brokenness, confession of sin, and reconciliation, and God grants repentance, and you get to see it.

You get to be a first row seat and view to see this work of God that takes place. And I'll just tell you that those moments, you fight hard for them. It takes a lot of labor to get there, but when you're privileged to be able to sit in those moments, you look back, and you look back on the essays that you worked your way through, and you look back at all the training that you went through in phase one and phase two of ACBC training, and it's all worth it.

It's all worth it to be part of this work of God where someone's life is different because you are able to bring the word of God to bear in the ministry of biblical counseling. And so this is a wonderful ministry. God does grant repentance is what I would encourage you with, and when he does, it is a beautiful thing to see.

So let me pray for us briefly, and then we'll dive into our notes and look at the essay exam tonight. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the truth that you do indeed grant repentance. This is an expression of your grace and your favor toward us. You do change hearts.

You do awaken eyes. You do soften people's attitudes. You do change lives through your word, and we thank you that it is your kindness that leads us to repentance. We pray that, Father, you would help us to apply this doctrine to our own lives first. As Luther said, all of life is repentance.

Help us to be daily repenting of sin and embracing Christ through faith that we ourselves may be a model of the things we wish to see in the lives of our counselees. Thank you for each student in this class. Bless them richly. Thank you for their faithfulness. Thank you for our time together.

Work in our hearts. Through your word, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, we are looking at the essay exam tonight, which is "Describe the Role of Repentance in Beginning and Continuing the Christian Life," and the question is to explain the importance of the doctrine of repentance for biblical counseling.

On your handout, you have the normal reading from Wayne Grudem, Paul Enns, and Heath Lambert, and in addition to those three resources, I sent you a Dropbox link with a few other handouts that I think you'll find helpful in your study of this topic. There's a reading there by J.C.

Ryle on the doctrine of repentance, very helpful. Everything from Ryle is very helpful in our understanding of these topics. And then I would especially commend to you the worksheet that was created by Brad Bigney. It's called "True Repentance and Its Impact." That is a worksheet that we use in our biblical counseling ministry here at Kindred.

I think it's available for free off the church, their church's website, and it's just a worksheet that helps a counselee walk through the doctrine of repentance. It has some fill-in-the-blanks that a counselee can fill out and make practical application of this doctrine to their lives, and just a very helpful work.

We'll cover some of the material in the next few minutes that's on that handout, but if you want a handout to give to a counselee to help them work through repentance, that would be a good one to use. And so, just a number of good resources on the topic of repentance.

So, you'll know that this question really has three different elements. The first is to describe the role of repentance in the beginning of the Christian life. So, what is the role of repentance in conversion, the gospel call to repent and believe? Then you have the second element, which is to describe the role of repentance in continuing the Christian life.

So, we begin our Christian lives by repenting of sin and believing in the gospel, and then we continue the Christian life as we repent on a daily basis and embrace Christ through faith in our sanctification. And then the third element of the question is to explain the importance of the doctrine of repentance for biblical counseling.

Now, you don't have to answer the question in that order. If you want to do so, you're more than welcome to break up your essay into those three portions, but you don't have to do that. You can do a general discussion of repentance, but in some point of your essay, you're going to want to address the question, how would you use the doctrine of repentance in counseling others?

Why is this doctrine so important in biblical counseling ministry? And so, if you pick apart the elements of the question, those would be the three elements that the question is looking for. Now, let me move to the next page of your handout here and just look at the doctrine of repentance.

Wayne Grudem has given this definition for repentance. I believe it's an excellent one. He says that repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ. So, repentance includes a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of that sin, and then a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.

If you've been with us in our study, we looked at the three components of faith. There was an intellectual aspect, there was an emotional aspect, and there was a volitional aspect of faith. Faith understands certain truths to be relevant. Faith emotionally embraces those truths in application to the person's heart, and then there's a volitional aspect of faith where faith places one's confidence or trust in a certain person or thing.

And so, those categories of intellectual, emotional, and volitional. Now, we'll find when it comes to repentance that those categories are applicable to our understanding of this doctrine as well. This isn't on your handout, but I'll put it up on the screen here. Repentance includes those three aspects. There is an intellectual understanding that sin is wrong.

There is an emotional approval of the teachings of Scripture regarding sin, and then there is a personal decision to turn from sin and seek forgiveness from God. So, there's a similarity there to the three aspects of saving faith, intellectual, emotional, and volitional. If you look at your handout, we'll see these three categories being addressed by different passages in Scripture.

We see the emotional aspect of repentance addressed in Matthew 5, verse 4, where Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." There is a legitimate type of mourning and sorrow in the heart of a sinner who understands his or her sin before holy God. It's not just the worldly sorrow of mourning over the consequences of sin.

It is a legitimate sorrow that is really born out of that statement in Psalm 51, verse 5, "Against you and you alone I have sinned." It is the understanding that I've sinned against a holy God. It is the understanding that I violated His laws. I have dishonored Him, and there is a mourning.

There is a sorrow that takes place in the sinner's heart. Notice here that not all sorrow is equivalent to true repentance. Saul was sorry for his sin. He said, "I have sinned," but he did not repent of that sin back in the Old Testament. Judas felt remorse for his sin in betraying Christ, but he did not repent of that sin, and so not all emotion or sorrow equals true repentance.

There are people who feel sorry over the consequences of their sin, that they've lost their job, or they've lost their marriage, or they've lost their privileges, but it's not the true contrition of a believer who sees his or her sin as an affront against a holy God. Or as a believer, one is sorry for, "I have sinned against my heavenly Father who so loves me and cares for me," but there is a sorrow when it comes to true repentance.

And Jesus actually, far from discouraging that type of sorrow, He pronounces a blessing upon those who mourn. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." So you see there the emotional aspect of true repentance. You also see a volitional aspect to true repentance. In Luke 18 verse 13, Jesus spoke of the tax collector who was repentant, and it says that the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." So here we see both the emotional aspect of repentance and the volitional aspect of repentance.

He cried out for mercy. He was broken over his sin, and back in those days, the tax collector, that was one of the most public and notorious of sins, to be defrauding your own people of finances, of money, under the authority of a Roman oppressor. And so a tax collector was not only viewed as a financial cheater, but also as a traitor to one's people.

But here you have one who is a notorious sinner, at least in a public sense, and he's crying out for mercy. "God be merciful to me, a sinner." And Jesus contrasts that expression of repentance to the words of the Pharisee who said in that same passage, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men," and went on to list the ways that he was superior to others.

So just a practical note there for counseling ministry. I would much rather in counseling minister to someone, a counselee, who has a serious and somewhat notorious sin, but who has a broken and contrite heart. I'd much rather minister to that person than minister to someone who may have a less serious sin, at least in regards to public reputation, but who puffs himself or herself up in pride and self-righteousness, and is so blinded by self-righteousness that he can't see his sin and just says, "Well, at least I'm not like other sinners.

I know I'm a husband who needs to grow, but at least I'm not like those other husbands who don't even have a job or who don't even provide for their family. I know I have an anger problem, but at least I'm not like other people who can't get their lives right in certain areas." I'd much rather minister to the counselee who says, "Here is my sin, and I'm broken over my sin, and God be merciful to me, a sinner, and I need to grow, and I need to change," than one who is afflicted with self-righteousness, and part of counseling ministry is engaging in that spiritual battle to pray for a person's self-righteousness to be broken, and that perhaps is the most damaging sin of all, is to be so self-righteous in your pride that you can't see your sin, and you can't repent of your sin.

Luke 19 verse 8 is a beautiful picture of repentance. This would highlight all three aspects, the intellectual, emotional, and volitional aspects of repentance. Verse 8 says, "And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.' And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.'" So, here's how you know a person is repentant.

A person is repentant when you have to say to them, "That's too much. You don't need to restore things fourfold." I mean, restore things one-fold would be good enough, but the heart of true repentance is a desire to do anything that it would take to make things right before God and before others.

And we do see that in counseling ministry, when God does this work, that a person goes from saying, "How little can I get away with?" to saying, "How much can I do to show that I am truly sorry for my sin?" John the Baptist preached a message of repentance in Luke 3, verse 8.

He said, "Bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the foot of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." Now, watch this.

John the Baptist preached like a biblical counselor. Or should I say that we should counsel in accordance with John the Baptist preaching? Because in verse 10, it says that the crowds asked him, "What then shall we do?" And John the Baptist didn't say to that question, "Well, as long as you just feel really bad about it or you feel really sorry for your sin, that's good enough for God." Repentance is a turning.

It is a turning away from sin and a turning to God in obedience and faith. And so the crowds asked him, "What then shall we do?" In verse 11, he answered them, and he got very specific with his application. And that's very instructive for us as biblical counselors in training.

Note there the care and the specificity that characterize John's personal application of the doctrine of repentance. He didn't just say, "Well, repent and do what you want." He got personal. Verse 11, he answered them, "Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise." Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do?" Notice John gave a different set of applications to the different types of people who were coming to him for ministry.

Tax collector said, "Teacher, what shall we do?" And John said, "Collect no more than you are authorized to do." Verse 13, soldiers also asked him, "And we, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages." So again, just talking about counseling ministry, you and I are going to counsel different types of people.

We're going to counsel older people and younger people. We're going to counsel people who are more mature in the faith and people who are brand new believers. We're going to counsel people who are married and people who are single. We're going to counsel people from different ages and stages of life.

And we need to learn to take this doctrine of repentance and make personal application that is different depending on the person whom we are ministering to. We need to learn not only to interpret the scriptures, but interpret the person who is in front of us. And that is a review of the year one training.

The applications for each believer will be different, even though the heart of repentance will be the same. The heart of each believer must be brought in humility before the Lord, but the expression of that humility will look different depending on the person and depending on their unique circumstances in life.

My friend Matt Shackelford is an ACBC fellow and he helped me with this just in conversation about counseling. And he said, "When your counseling is stuck, get more specific in application. When your counseling is stuck and you feel like you're not getting anywhere, then get more specific in your personal application." And that's in line with the ministry of John the Baptist who made very personal application of the doctrine of repentance, but had that application differ depending on the person in front of him.

Acts 26 verse 18, Jesus said to Paul, "I am sending you to open their eyes." And I love this. What a beautiful picture and description of repentance. "I'm sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn." Note that key word there and circle that. "They may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." So the idea of repentance is one of a turning.

The sinner turns from wonderful truth, turns from darkness to light, turns from Satan to God, turns from sin to obedience to God's word, turns from self-reliance to a reliance on Christ. And I love how Jesus said to Paul, "I'm sending you to open their eyes." Their eyes must be open to see the truth if this turning in their lives is to take place.

Now, that's just really practical, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Friends, this is real practical. I pray this every time that I teach and I preach God's word. I pray this every time that I counsel or every time I have an evangelistic opportunity. "Lord, open the eyes of my audience's heart so that they may turn from whatever they're trusting in or clinging to in their lives and that they may turn to Christ." And I pray that for not only unbelievers, but I pray that for believers as well because believers tend to, we know, believers tend to turn back to sin, turn back to self, and we need to be continually reminded of the turning that needs to take place on a daily basis to turn away from sin and turn to Christ.

And the eyes of our heart need to be open in that way. We cover 2 Timothy 2, verse 24. I won't belabor that point, but just note in Luke, the next passage there, Luke 15, verse 7, the joy of repentance, the joy of this ministry, which I've been trying to communicate to you, Luke 15, verse 7, "Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance." And you have that language of turning in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 9, "For they themselves report concerning us the kind of perception we had among you and how you turned," there it is again, you can circle that word again, "you turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God." So Grudem writes that "repentance like faith is an intellectual understanding that sin is wrong, an emotional approval of the teachings of scripture regarding sin, a sorrow for sin and the hatred of it, and a personal decision to turn from it, a renouncing of sin and a decision of the will to forsake it and lead a life of obedience to Christ itself.

All of this is the work of God in the sinner's heart." So let me open this can of worms here and see if I can address this question. So the question would be, what is the relationship between faith and repentance? You'll notice in your Bibles that sometimes the Bible says, "repent and believe." Sometimes the Bible simply says, "repent." Sometimes the Bible says, "repent to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." Are these two different calls to salvation?

Are there two different requirements for salvation? And I don't believe that is true. I don't believe that when the Bible says, "repent and believe," that it's talking about two separate requirements of salvation. I believe that the language of "repent and believe" is talking about two aspects of the one call to salvation, two sides of one coin, if you will, "repent and believe." If a person is going to believe in Christ, they must turn from their sin.

There must be a turning from self, a turning from idols. If a person repents, they must turn to something. One must not only turn away from sin, but turn to Christ. So I don't believe "repent and believe" are talking about two separate calls to salvation. I believe that it's talking about two sides of the same coin.

And that's why the Scriptures sometimes say, "repent and believe." Sometimes the Scripture says, "believe," which implies repentance. And sometimes the Scripture says, "repent," which implies believe as you turn from your sin, turn to Christ in faith. And so as John Calvin has well said, "Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith." J.C.

Ryle has said this on the next page of your handout, "Wherever faith is, there is repentance. Wherever repentance is, there's always faith." I do not decide which comes first, whether repentance comes before faith or faith before repentance. But I am bold to say that the two graces are never found separate one from the other.

Just as you cannot have the sun without light or ice without cold or fire without heat or water without moisture, you will never find true faith without true repentance. And you will never find true repentance without lively faith. The two things will always go side by side. I think he says it as well as it can be said.

Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. So on your handout there, you see there that sometimes both repentance and faith are mentioned. Sometimes only faith is mentioned. Sometimes only repentance is mentioned. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. Repentant faith is what is necessary for salvation.

And so we work through these things and think through that in your own understanding. So before I get to this next slide here, let me look to some of the rest of the handout on this page. You see there the tension that repentance is a gift of God. As we mentioned, God grants repentance.

And at the same time, it is the responsibility of man. So we have to live in that tension. We call people to repentance while understanding that God is the one who grants repentance. So by the way, we do need to get comfortable in counseling ministry in calling our counselees to repentance.

Now, please be balanced with this. I don't recommend, at least with the counselors in our center, I don't recommend that they do the full John the Baptist and start calling their counselees brood of vipers. And on the first session, start warning them of the one who comes and who will baptize them with fire.

There might be a counselee who needs that type of direct treatment, but I don't usually recommend that type of direct ministry unless you are sensing a really stubborn heart. You don't want every word out of your mouth to be repent, repent, repent. I've had this discussion with those who are training for counseling ministry, and some have said even, "Well, what about the prophet Nathan who came to David and said, 'You're the man.

You have sinned. You're the man.' Isn't there a place for that in counseling ministry?" Just to say, "You've sinned and you need to repent." And my response is, "Well, make sure you read the rest of that passage. How did Nathan approach David and confront him on his sin?" It wasn't just, "You're the man and you're in sin." Didn't Nathan actually tell a story?

Didn't he give an illustration of a sheep and tell this vivid story that would illustrate David's sin? And it was only after David really didn't get the point of that story that he was the one being addressed. That was when Nathan got very pointed with him and said, "You're the man." There's a place for dialogue and there's a place for illustrations.

We cover some of this in year one of our training. There's a place to ask questions. Like God asked Jonah in Jonah 4 verse 1, "Jonah, do you do well to be angry?" There's a place to ask questions that would lead a counselee to reflect on their own behavior.

And you probably would be much wiser to lead a counselee to see his or her own sin than to be constantly be the counselor who says, "That's a sin. Repent. That's a sin. Repent." Just reflect on that. I'm not saying there's not a place for that. I'm just saying that I surely would not want to see a counselor who in every session just simply said, "You're in sin.

Repent." But with that said, there is a place for calling the counselee to repentance with gentleness, with kindness, using the various means, illustrations, questions, leading a dialogue. But we are here to change minds. We are praying that God would change hearts. We're not just merely engaging in a vent session where the person vents their emotions time after time in a counseling session.

We are looking for heart change. And so we do want to use this doctrine in counseling ministry. We want our counselees to repent of sin. Now, I want to reflect on this whole idea in the time I have remaining here of repentance continuing through the Christian life. So I hope you're convinced that a person cannot become a Christian without repenting of sin and believing in Christ, repent and believe are the two sides of one coin.

I hope you're convinced of that, that a person can become a Christian and then live in continual unrepentant sin. Part of the repentance is just the metanoia, the changing of heart and mind that sees Christ as so much better than sin so that the true believer still struggles with sin, but the true believer does not love sin in the way that he or she loved sin as an unbeliever.

There's that work that God does in a person's heart where you see that Christ is so much better than the fleeting pleasures of sin. Christ is so much better than the deceitfulness of sin and that you simply cannot continue in sin and embrace Christ at the same time. And so a person begins a Christian life through repenting of sin and believing in Christ, but just a reflection here that repentance does continue through the Christian life, and I think this is illustrated in Ephesians 4 verses 22 to 24 where Paul addresses Christians.

And he says in verse 22, "To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Now, watch this.

We're going to see the same dynamic at work here that we saw in the ministry of John the Baptist. Notice that John the Baptist, he gave this general call to repentance. He said, "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." Then when they came to him and they said, "What shall we do?" He got very specific in his application of repentance to their lives.

Paul is going to follow a similar pattern. He's going to introduce this general concept of putting off the old self and renewing your minds in the truth and then putting on the new self, the put off, put on dynamic that ought to characterize our lives. And then we might be asking, "Well, what then shall we do?

How are we to put off sin and put on righteousness?" Paul, at that point, gets very specific in his application. He says in verse 25, "Put off falsehood and put on speaking truth. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbors, for we are members one of another." By the way, we talked about this in year one in marital communication.

That verse means you put off using exaggerated speech because it's not true. The language of, "You never listen to me," or, "You always disrespect me," or, "We don't have anything in common." Those are exaggerations that as an expression of repentance, you put off that type of speech and you put on speaking truth.

Verse 26, "You put off sinful anger and you put on righteous anger." Paul says, "Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil." Paul's meaning here is that the believer puts off sinful anger. Be angry and do not sin.

Yet, this verse does allow for a form of righteous anger, the type of anger that does not sin. There is an aspect of righteous anger to our lives, although we must be very careful with that category of anger. We ought to be angry at false doctrine and we ought to be angry when Christ's name is dishonored.

We ought to be angry righteously at certain sins such as abortion or genocide. We ought to be angry at certain things that we see in our society. A righteous anger that is self-controlled and that has more to do with the glory of God than personal offense. Paul says, "Put off sinful anger.

Put on righteous anger." He says in verse 28, "Put off stealing and put on sharing. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands that he may have something to share with anyone in need." He says, "Put off corrupting speech.

Put on edifying speech. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear." Then he says, "Put off bitterness and put on forgiveness. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." Now, just look at that list of applications for a moment and just look at this as an illustration of the dynamic of repentance that ought to be characterizing our lives. Would you agree if you looked at that passage and you look at the applications of the put off and put on dynamic, putting off falsehood, putting on truth, putting off anger, putting on righteous anger, putting off stealing, putting on sharing, putting off all corrupting speech, putting on only speech that builds up and edifies, putting off all these forms of bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander, malice, and putting on forgiveness of other sins?

Would you agree with Martin Luther's statement that all of life is repentance? Is there anyone among us who can look at that passage and all the applications of the truth of repentance and say, "Well, I've kind of reached a point where I don't need to do this anymore. I don't need to put off and put on anymore.

I've sort of been a Christian for 15 years now, and at year 15, I've kind of arrived where I don't need to put off and put on anymore. I'm living perfectly on the right side of that column, and I have no need of daily repentance." I'd be saying, "Are you kidding me?

You just haven't studied the passage." All of us would look at those applications and see that we all have need of daily repentance, and if you need an illustration of that, just look at that last application. All bitterness, all wrath, all clamor, all slander, all malice. Paul says, and here's the language of repentance, the language of repentance, they must be put away, which refers to a decisive, definitive action that needs to be carried out with a sense of urgency.

A person says, "I'm angry." Paul doesn't say, "Well, find a place to vent or find a place to let off steam." He says, "Let that anger be put away from you. You have a responsibility to repent of that sinful anger and to forgive as Christ has forgiven you, which means that you must forgive from the heart." All of the Christian life is repentance.

Repentance continues in each of us, each of our lives, and where a counselor is helpful, and by the way, you can make a whole counseling ministry if you just master Ephesians 4. Actually, David Powelson said that if you just master the book of Ephesians, you can have an entire lifetime of counseling just based upon using the book of Ephesians, and he actually wrote a book.

I think the book is Speaking the Truth in Love. He actually wrote a book that illustrates how you just use Ephesians in counseling, and you can address so many counseling issues just by mastering that one book, but even if you just mastered Ephesians chapter 4, and even just this passage, Ephesians 4 verses 22 to 32, how much counseling could you do?

I mean, anyone dealing with any of these issues could be helped as you take them to the truth of God's Word, and then where a counselor is helpful is you get very specific based upon the counselee who is in front of you. You don't just say, "Well, forgive as Christ has forgiven you." In counseling, you say, "Bob, God's Word is calling you to forgive Bill." For the times where, Bill, your co-worker came and was really critical toward you in his speech, God is calling you to forgive him as Christ has forgiven you, and you call Bob or whoever you counsel, you call that person to repentance.

Just as I close, I would just note that there is joy in walking on the path of obedience. There is joy in walking in newness of life. Let me ask you to consider who is happier, the Christian who is living in bondage to bitterness and anger and wrath and just stewing over the things that have been done wrong to him or her, or the person who has repented of those sins and is walking with Christ, a person who has pleaded with God to change and soften his or her heart, and who has become tenderhearted, forgiving others.

This is why C. H. Spurgeon said, "The true evangelical repentance is food to the saintly soul. I do not know, beloved, when I am more perfectly happy than when I am weeping for sin at the foot of the cross, for that is the safest place in which I can stand.

Sorrow for sin is a sweet sorrow. Do not desire to escape it." I think Roland Hill was right when he said that his only regret in going to heaven would be that he could no more repent. And so I commend to you the study of this topic. There's some more work there that I won't cover from 2 Corinthians 7 on distinguishing worldly sorrow from true repentance.

Do some work on that. Read Brad Bigney's handout on that subject. And if you need more help on that, Heath Lambert's book, Finally Free, Chapter 2, has an excellent chapter on distinguishing worldly sorrow from godly repentance. And I would commend that chapter to you if you want more work on that subject.

But I hope and pray that we will all live in the good of this doctrine. And by the way, when you do see your counselee repent, just affirm that. Just learn to tell your counselee that the fact that you are seeing your sin, the fact that you are seeing your need for change is the evidence of God's work in you.

I believe that what I'm seeing in your life is the work of the Holy Spirit. I believe that you're a true Christian because you're seeking to repent of sin. Just learn to affirm. Affirm God's forgiveness. Learn to use 1 John 1, 9 that if we confess our sins, then he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and our transgressions.

And just affirm that in your counselee's life that I believe that on the authority of God's word that God has forgiven you of the sin because you are, God will not despise a broken and contrite heart. Just learn to, when you do see that in the people you work with, to affirm those things and to encourage your counselee in that way.

But I do pray that we will live in the good of Psalm 32, verse 1, "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit." Thank you so much for being with us tonight on this webinar.

And just I pray for each of you that God will bless your studies. If I can be of any help or if Jacqueline can be of any help in your studies, please feel free to email us at counseling@kinderchurch.org. I do look forward to showing you the new counseling offices and just rejoicing in what God is doing in there.

And we need those offices to be filled. And so we are praying that God will bless each of your training and that He will equip you for this wonderful ministry. And we're so excited about what the Lord is doing. So let me pray for us and close our time together.

And we will regather next Sunday at 5 o'clock and continue with theology exam number 18. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for our time together. We do thank you for the doctrine of repentance. And we pray that we may learn to daily repent of our own sin, to turn from sin, and to embrace Christ by faith.

Help us to put off the old man, to renew our minds with the truth of your Word, and to put on the new man, and to make application of these things to our own lives so that it is out of the experience of a transformed heart and life that we would lead others to experience that same transformation.

Lord, do it work in our own hearts. Repentance is not easy. We pray that you would help us to repent, not only on the surface level of behavior and words and actions, but at the heart level, at the level of our thinking, our desires, our values, our treasures, what we worship and build our lives around, that we will learn to to turn from idolatry and from the things that we worship, and that we would turn to embrace Christ and worship Christ in him alone.

We thank you for the purifying work of your Word, the work that you're doing in each of our lives. Pray that you would keep us and bless us in this next week and regather.