Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

SESSION 4: Notes to Speakers and ECLS Team

Repentance and Faith:
Responding to the Invitation of Jesus Christ

OBJECTIVES:
1. To awaken the participant's awareness of the seriousness of sin and the necessity of
faith.
2. Help them to willingly and joyfully turn away from everything incompatible with the
Christian life and to turn to Christ in faith.
ESSENTIALS OF THIS TALK:
1. Receiving the gift of salvation Jesus offers requires a double-action response:
Repentance and Faith. They go together. We need both for a meaningful and lasting
response.
2. Repentance = Metanoia = change of direction. Change of heart and mind influencing
our values and motivations and resulting in changed behavior and attitude.
a. Repentance is not sorrow/regret for the negative consequence of the sin.
b. Repentance is sorrow/rejection of the sin itself.
c. Repentance does not depend on feelings but on an objective decision to accept
only God’s righteousness into one’s life and reject anything not compatible with
it.
1. What to do to repent?
a. Be honest
b. Exercise humility
c. Renounce sin
d. Ask God’s forgiveness
1. Specific serious sins to renounce -- totally incompatible with a relationship with God:
a. Involvement in non-Christian religions
b. Spiritualism, the occult, witchcraft
c. Sexual intercourse outside marriage; adultery; active homosexuality
d. Murder, robbery, cheating, lying, slander
e. Drunkenness (not just drinking but drunkenness), getting stoned on drugs
f. Hatred and unforgiveness
1. Faith is a personal act and decision to rely and trust in God and His ways.
a. Faith is not simply a “head” knowledge of God and His ways.
b. Faith is not just a feeling, wishful thinking, or a blind leap.

ECLS Session 4 page 1 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

COMMENTS ON THE DYNAMICS OF THE SESSION:

1. The fourth Session aims to prepare the participants to receive God’s gift of salvation.
“This is the how to do it” week.
2. Part of the dynamics is to set a one-on-one session between the each participant and
their group leader before the next schedules session. This is a time where consultation,
clarifications, prayers and fellowship can happen.
For this time, the group leader’s main objective is to help the participant see areas of
repentance and help him repent in a good way. It will be good to give the participants
an idea of what to expect in that one-on-one session. Though it might have been
mentioned in the 1st Session, it will be good to mention it here again. The Team leader
or the Speaker can do this. If the Speaker will do it, he can do it after his testimony in
PART D.
3. While the session is a serious one, the general tone should be that of joy -- joy in being
able to be reconciled with God.
4. The participants need to be personally assured of God’s love, and that God is faithful to
His promises. They need to know that they can give up a particular wrongdoing and
that the absence of that wrongdoing will not make them unhappy for the rest of their
lives. They need to be encouraged to take their first step to repentance and to have
faith in God and His ways and promises.

COMMENTS ON THE PRESENTATION

1. In PART A we want to make clear that they must put away anything which blocks their
relationship to God. We are primarily concerned with any major things that they are
doing wrong that are incompatible with the Christian life.
There are two kinds of repentance for a Christian: Basic and advanced.
a. Basic: Concerned with “big sins”. Paul gives a list of such sins in I Cor 5:11 and
6:9-10. Another list in Rev 21:9. There are other similar lists scattered
throughout the scriptures. These are wrongdoings which break the
commandments of God, which no one who calls Jesus his Lord can still engage
in.
b. Advanced: Concerned with faults that block our Christian progress, faults such
as watching television too much, not praying enough, not giving enough of our
money to the poor.
We want to focus on basic repentance. One reason is many of the participants need
basic repentance at this time than they need advanced repentance. Once they start to
fall in love with Jesus, they are ready for advanced repentance.
1. In PART A #5, we want to mention common types of serious wrongdoings. When we
talk about robbery, cheating, lying, etc., we are talking about serious robbery, cheating,
lying, etc. We are not talking about small offenses. Small offenses should also be done
away with, but our concern here is to center on serious wrongdoing
When we speak about drunkenness and use of drugs, we want to say that allowing any
sort of damaging effects to ourselves – getting out of control, harming our mind,

ECLS Session 4 page 2 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

impairing our ability to function normally – is wrong. In effect, this is to say that people
should not get drunk or take drugs.
2. PART B should be a simple instruction on faith. We want people to focus on Christ and
His promises, not on having faith. If people start concentrating on their own faith, they
will have a hard time having faith. It is when they have their eyes on the Lord, on His
power and His promises that faith will grow in them.
3. Personal Testimony: Avoid focusing on how sinful you were before. Focus more on
how you repented and turned to God and His ways.
DISCUSSION STARTERS
Share with one another what the Lord has taught us about what we need to do to repent?
Share areas where we need to turn more fully to God. Share areas where we need to grow in
faith.
Schedule one-on-one Session with Group Leader.

SUGGESTED SONG(S) TO TEACH:

1. Change My Heart (O God)
2. Happy Is The Man

ECLS Session 4 page 3 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

Session 4: Expanded outline:

Repentance and Faith:

Responding to the Invitation of Jesus Christ Title

INTRODUCTION: The first three (3) sessions presented to us that God meant man to be
united with Him and experience full life. However, because man sinned, he became
separated from God. God did not abandon us and instead implemented His plan to save us
from sin and its effects. Central to that plan is Jesus. He sent Jesus Christ into the world
that through Him man might experience full life with God and with others. He extends an
invitation and we need to respond freely. Our topic today is about responding to Jesus'
invitation. Our response, however, requires a double-action. Mk 1:14- 15
"The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the gospel."
1. REPENTANCE - reform of lives, and
2. BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL - have faith in Him and the message He brings.
3. Double-Action Response: Repentance and faith go together. To just reform our
lives or to repent is an inadequate response to God. We need to believe in Him
and His plans and promises. But simply believing without doing anything to reform
our lives to become pleasing to God is also inadequate. We need to do both.
Reform our lives and believe in the gospel.
A. Repentance
1. The Greek word, metanoia, literally means a change of mind. It refers to a change of
direction.
a. Repentance is a significant change in the way you live your life; dropping an old set
of ideals and values by which you live your life and adopting new ones.
b. A change of heart and mind -- the way you think and act, your attitudes, motives,
thoughts and behavior.
2. More specifically turning away from evil, sin, wrongdoing and running your own life (as
if there is no God and disregarding His ways); and turning to a life of obedience to God
and having Jesus in the throne of your life. It includes turning away from double-
mindedness, lukewarmness (Rev. 3:15-17) and neglect of our Christian
responsibilities.
3. A serious misconception. "We are very apt to confuse two things -- sorrow for the
consequences of sin, and sorrow for sin. There is many a man who is desperately sorry
because of the mess that sin has got him into, but that man very well knows that, if he
could be reasonably sure that he could escape the consequences, he would do the
same thing again. It is not the sin that he hates; it is the consequences of the sin. But
real repentance means that a man has come, not only to be sorry for the
consequences of sin, but to hate sin itself." (From Barclay's commentary).
Important point: Repentance does not depend on feelings but on an objective decision to
accept only God's righteousness into one's life and to reject anything not compatible with it.

ECLS Session 4 page 4 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

4. What’s involved in repentance? What must we do?

a. Be honest. Admit that there are things in our lives that are wrong and need
changing; that we have sin in our lives. Call a spade a spade. E.g. If it is sin, do
not call it a "Growth Experience."
b. Exercise humility. Humility here does not mean getting down on yourself but a
realization of your need of change and help from God. Be willing to change and be
willing to receive help from the Lord to change. Don't expect to be able to change
all by yourself.
c. Renounce sin. Actively turn away from sin and decide not to do it again. Avoiding
occasions of sin is part of this. (You can do this. God will help you.)
d. Ask God's forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 "But if we acknowledge our sins, He Who is just
can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrong." Ask
forgiveness from God for what we have done wrong.
5. Specific sins we must renounce: these are serious sins, totally incompatible with a
relationship with God. I'm not referring now to "small stuff", character flaws, like getting
irritated at your spouse, officemates, etc. Read: 1Cor. 6:9-10 and Gal. 5:19-21
a. Involvement in non-Christian religions
b. Spiritualism, the occult, witchcraft
c. Sexual intercourse outside marriage; adultery; active homosexuality.
d. Murder, robbery, cheating, lying, slander
e. Drunkenness (not just drinking but drunkenness), getting stoned on drugs.
f. Hatred and unforgiveness
Note carefully which of these apply to you. It would be helpful for you to talk to your group
discussion leader this week about how to turn away from them. The point here is not to feel
bad about past sin, but to decisively turn from them.
Those who have committed sins need sacramental confession in order to complete their
process of reconciliation. Sacramental confession can also be very helpful for those who have
not committed serious sins, but who are turning to the Lord in a new way.
6. Repentance only becomes complete after totally turning away from evil and accepting
Jesus Christ as the Lord. Our lives need to come under His management. We need to
let Him have the run of things. Accepting Jesus and letting Him be Lord of our lives
require faith.

ECLS Session 4 page 5 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

B. Faith
1. Faith is a personal act and decision to rely and trust in God and His ways. Faith means
not just believing with our minds, our intellect that Jesus is the Savior, but believing that
He came to be our personal Savior.
a. It is a definite act. We must open the door for Christ to come into our lives.
b. It is a personal act of the individual. We can decide on our own to open the door.
No one can decide for us to open the door.
c. It is a deliberate act. You do not have to wait for a supernatural light to flash upon
you from heaven, or an emotional experience to overtake you. Christ came into the
world and died for your sins. He has now come and stands outside the front door of
your life, and he is knocking (Rev. 2:20). The next move is yours.
d. It is an urgent act. Time is passing. The future is uncertain.
e. It is an indispensable act. It is the step we need to take to receive all God has
promised. Faith is relying on all God has said, like Peter relied on what Jesus said.
Mt. 14:22-29
2. What faith is not?
a. It is not just a feeling or wishful thinking or a blind leap. None of those would have
gotten Peter to step into the water; he was too practical a man. Peter
stepped on the water because Jesus invited him to and relied on what Jesus
said because he trusted Jesus wouldn't lie, and knew He had the power to do
whatever He said He would do.
b. An excerpt from Basic Christianity, by: Stott

"Do you hesitate? Do you say it is unreasonable to submit to Christ in the dark?
Surely, it is not. It is not much more unreasonable than marriage. In marriage, a
man and a woman commit themselves to each other without condition. They do not
know what the future holds for them. But they love each other, and trust each other
to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.' If humans
can thus trust humans, can we not trust God's son? It is more reasonable to
commit oneself to the divine Christ than to the fairest and noblest of human beings.
He will never betray or abuse our confidence."
3. God has promised new life to us. Faith is accepting that life and letting Him show us
how to live it. We must be willing to do whatever He wants of us and actually do it.

ECLS Session 4 page 6 of 7 pages

Ligaya ng Panginoon Covenant Community ECLS September 2002

C. Consequences of Repentance and Faith

1. Acts 16:14 -- "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." This is a
promise for salvation from sin, Satan, and death. This is a promise of forgiveness and
eternal life with God.
2. Luke 11:9-11 -- This is a promise for the new life, the Holy Spirit. Christians can pray for
a greater release of the power of the Spirit based on this promise. You can claim these
by an act of faith in prayer. Ask and you shall receive! God is faithful. He will do it.
D. Personal testimony: Tell them concretely how you repented and turned to God, but be
brief. It will be good to include the value of the one-on-one session you had with your
leader.
E. CONCLUDING WORDS
1. The Challenge
a. Take Jesus up on His challenge which He gave 2,000 years ago. "Repent and
believe in the gospel." Turn from sin and all obstacles to God and accept Jesus as
Lord.
b. Then take God up on His promises.
2. Today’s session focused on turning away from wrongdoing and turning to Christ. This
ends the 1st Module. The next session will begin a new Module on the Authentic
Christian Life. It will deal on living in love and in the Spirit. It starts with Loving God.

ECLS Session 4 page 7 of 7 pages