Aaron Andrade | Genuine Repentance

Sunday Evening, August 16, 2026

Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

Genuine Repentance
Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 33

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Transcript

Let's pray. 

Oh God, who may ascend to your holy hill? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. God, this is our prayer tonight, that your Word would cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, that through its preaching, you would teach us – teach us, Lord – how to perfectly love you, how to worthily glorify your name, how to discern the thoughts and intents of our inward being, which are deceitful sometimes. Father, give us wisdom as we look to your Word, that it would be something that aligns our hearts to you. We ask this in your name. Amen. 

Imagine for a minute that you're David. The year is 1,000 B.C. Earlier this morning, you've put on your royal robes, your jewelry, your vestments. The beautiful crown has been laid on your head. It's been a long season of war campaigning, and while the other kings are going out to battle, you've opted for a well-deserved break. A few short minutes ago, you sat down on your throne for the first time in many months to conduct the business of running the kingdom of Israel. The chief of your royal court is just finishing reciting aloud for the whole court to hear your many accomplishments, any of which would be lifetime achievements for most of them. As a teenager, he talks about you protecting your little lambs and killing a lion, killing a bear. He talks about you being an accomplished musician, so skilled in the harp that you played in front of King Saul. A national hero, single-handedly killing the nine-foot Philistine giant and cutting off his head. Commander of an elite force of 600 mighty men, able to elude Saul's forces for months at a time. Your fame is so renowned far and wide that they even write songs about you: “David killed his ten thousands.” You're a warrior. As you're taking this all in, just then you notice something unexpected is happening. Your chief is receiving a small scroll from a messenger. He opens it, finishes reading, then looks over to you and smiles. He then turns to the court and announces with joy that the prophet Nathan is here, paying you a surprise visit. Your heart skips a beat. The last time Nathan was there giving you a word from the Lord, he had some incredible things to say. God said that he would make you a great name, and not just that – he said he would establish your house and your kingdom forever. A never-ending kingdom. You work really hard to contain your enthusiasm as Nathan enters the royal court. He positions himself in front of you, and you motion for him to begin, and you prepare yourself for more blessings from the Lord. 

He begins to speak: “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the one poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing. Nothing but one little lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew with him and with his children, and it used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” The story strikes a nerve. You were a shepherd. There was a point when you had only one little lamb. You feel your blood boil and your heart race. You say to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. He shall restore the lamb four-fold because he did this thing and because he had no pity." Nathan then looks up to you and says, "You are the man." 

Using our sanctified imagination, you can almost feel the tension in the air, can't you? David is confronted. He's confronted with sin. Maybe you've had a moment like this, like David, where you've been confronted with your sin. He realizes that what he thought was secret is no secret at all. Nathan goes on to call out all of it in its ugly detail. David has slept with a married woman. He's murdered an innocent man. And this right here – Nathan and David – this is his moment of reckoning. We have moments of reckoning like this as well, don't we, when we can ignore our sin no more and when we have to look in the mirror? It's at that point that we realize there are no secret sins with God. You can look now, you can look later, but there will be a reckoning. And the question – the question for us is how will we respond? 

Turn with me to 2 Samuel 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. I want you to turn there because as it pertains to responses, I want you to see how David responds. 2 Samuel chapter 12. We're going to look at verse 13. Here's what it says. Nathan's confronted David. He's gone through all of the sins. He's talked about God's judgments. And here's what happens next in verse 13: “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die.’” The entirety of the sermon today is wedged between the space of those two phrases, half a centimeter on the page. Whatever you believe happened 3,000 years ago, between David saying, "I've sinned against the Lord," and Nathan saying, "The Lord has put it away," that becomes your theology of repentance. How do we get from one phrase to the other? What exactly happened in David to justify the Lord saying he was going to put away the sin? And that's our focus for today as we come to Lord's Day 33 in our Heidelberg Catechism. What are the qualities of true repentance? Genuine repentance. When someone holds up the mirror to our sin, when we see ourselves as we really are, what is the proper response? What is genuine repentance? 

Now, we're not all in a situation like David tonight. We're not getting confronted with that kind of sin, so I want to start by asking the question, who is this relevant for? Who is it relevant for? Who should be listening to a sermon about what is genuine repentance? Well, on the one hand, the Bible connects repentance directly to salvation. So, the first answer is everyone. Everyone. Passages like Mark 1:15 make the point. Here's what Mark says, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.’” It's the first word of the gospel: repent. Repent. Spoken by Jesus himself. We spend a lot of time on the second part: believe. Right? We understand what that is. But we don't spend as much time on that first word, repent. Repent. The sad reality is that many people are fuzzy. Maybe you're in that boat. Fuzzy. What exactly does it really mean to repent? Is it just me saying the sinner's prayer? Is that all it takes? Have I repented in that way? Well, if not, then what exactly are the qualities of genuine repentance? So, it's relevant for everyone as it pertains to the gospel. But on the other hand, there are a few groups that I want to highlight particularly this evening. 

First, it's relevant for leaders. If you're here and you're a pastor, you're an elder, you're a deacon, you're a ministry leader, even a parent who has children looking up to you, you are especially at risk if you don't know what true repentance is. Why is that? Well, it's because you and the office you hold creates the ideal conditions for your sin to be minimized. People are less inclined to correct you, and it's easier to think you're off limits, right? And that's what happened to David. You heard the list of all his accomplishments, right? He started to believe all of the songs about himself, and surely no one would confront him about that sin until Nathan came. If you're a leader here tonight, you need a Nathan. You need a Nathan in your life who will honestly call you to repentance. So, this is relevant for leaders. 

Here's another group that this is very relevant for: secret sinners, which as I mentioned isn't really a category, but there are some of you who are caught in a secret sin. It's a besetting sin. Maybe it's pornography. Maybe it's sexual immorality. Maybe it's drunkenness. Maybe you're gambling more money than you have. You cannot stop. What you thought was repentance isn't really working. And like David, you've carefully compartmentalized your life, and you've learned to manage an outward version of yourself and an inward version, one that people can see and one that they can't. And you're afraid that after this long, maybe change is not possible. Maybe repentance really isn't a thing for you. This is an important message for you to listen to. What is genuine repentance? 

Here's another category, and this might be the majority of the people in the room tonight: respectable sinners. Maybe as I talked about the secret sinners, you breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God I'm not caught in any secret sin like those people. But if you were to look in the mirror – your mirror, not someone else's mirror, your mirror – here's what you would see. You might see the ugliness of what Jerry Bridges calls respectable sins. The sins we tolerate. Here's a few names of sins that might be you. How about discontentment? You've never been satisfied your whole life. You've always been thinking God owes you something. Complaining, discontented. How about gossip? You thrill to hear the latest news of someone's mistakes. Or impatience and anger. You're harsh. You're harsh. You're harsh around the house. You're harsh with your wife. You're harsh with your children. This has been a pattern. You lash out. What about unthankfulness? What about selfishness? What about judgmentalism? If someone walks in front of you, all you can think about is all the ways that they are wrong. This is a sermon for you. What does genuine repentance look like for respectable sins? 

Lastly, this is relevant for a group of people that are here tonight that are hurting. When your family is shattered by sin – whether that's abuse, whether that's betrayal, lies, deception, whatever it is – when it hits you like a gut punch, the question you're asking yourself is how do I know when this person is repentant, when it's safe for me to bring this person back around? It's an important question, because tremendous damage can be done when someone is not repentant, and there is tremendous joy at stake if you know what true repentance looks like and the reconciliation can occur. So, you can see understanding genuine repentance looks like and is relevant for all of us. 

So, what we're going to do is we're going to take a deeper look at how the Heidelberg defines it. If you look at your bulletin, I'm going to focus on three of the four questions. Go ahead and turn to the back, and we'll look at them now. Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 33. Kevin did a great job speaking of good works last week, so we're not going to focus very much on question 91, but take a look at question 88. Here's what it says: 

Q: What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion? 

A: Two things. The dying away of the old self and the rising to life of the new. 

Q: What is the dying away of the old self? 

A: To be genuinely sorry for sin and more and more to hate and run away from it. 

Q: What is the rising to life of the new self? 

A: Whole-hearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work. 

So, we'll look at repentance tonight using those two parts: dying to the old self, rising to the new. And I'll give three points for what dying looks like – dying to the old self – and three points for what the rising looks like. So, two parts, dying and rising. Three points describing what does it look like to die to self? What does it look like to rise again to new life? 

So, part one, dying to self. What does this look like in practice? I want you to turn to Psalm 51. Turn over to Psalm 51. We read it already, responsively. Bruce did a great job of setting the tone for that. But you'll remember in the beginning, I said your theology of repentance can fit right between those two phrases – David saying, "I've sinned against the Lord," and Nathan's response, "The Lord has put away your sin." The reason I can say that confidently is because we have Psalm 51. And look at that superscription right there near the chapter heading. Here's what it says: “To the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went into him after he'd gone into Bathsheba.” So, here you have basically a description of the context. I love that about the Psalms. And so, you can say, okay, we have not only the detail of the story in 2 Samuel, but now we have a picture and a window into one of the most beautiful literary pieces ever created about what repentance looks like. It's deeply personal. We understand that. We see the context, but it's also profoundly theological, as we'll see. David touches on total depravity, atonement, sanctification, and it's so full of poetic imagery that you don't even need to have that lens on it to be able to get value from it as someone who wants to understand, what does it look like to have a heart of repentance? A heart of genuine repentance. 

So, with Psalm 51 as our backdrop, here's what dying to self looks like. Three things. First, it looks like total personal responsibility. Total personal responsibility. The next time you're sitting with someone who is looking to demonstrate genuine repentance, here's a little test you can do. I want you to sit back, and I want you to listen just to their pronoun usage. What you might hear is I know I messed up, but she did this, she did that, they did this, you did that. A lot of times what you'll hear is all pronouns that are not “I” or “me,” pointing the finger at someone else. Look at Psalm 51. I'm just going to read for you the first three verses. Listen for the pronouns. “Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” Real repentance means taking complete and total responsibility. I did this. I did this, and I take ownership for it. No blame shifting, no excuse making. It's never starting sentences with “I'm not trying to make an excuse for anything, but…” Oh, well why are you making an excuse for something? When everything in us wants to save face and look better and avoid as much shame as possible, when we want to shift the focus towards other factors and past sins and this happened to me, some of those are relevant – absolutely. But when it comes to true repentance, here's what it looks like: total personal responsibility. It's my sin. It's me. I'm the one that needs to take responsibility, and I do. This is also taking responsibility before God. Look at verse 4: “Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Christian repentance keeps God at the center of the process. This looks like a recognition of how the sin has broken communion with a holy God, and we cannot truly repent and be reconciled to each other unless we're first reconciled to God. Dying to self looks like total personal responsibility. 

Second, it looks like full damage assessment. A full damage assessment. I don't know this from experience, but when neighborhoods experience some kind of a toxic spill, chemical spill, maybe from a chemical plant or something, the next step is a full environmental damage assessment. So, this means officials bring in all different experts. Environmental forensic chemists come in. They identify the exact contaminant, the cause and the timing of the release. Insurance adjusters come in, accountants to calculate how much is this going to cost to clean up. What about the business interruptions? Legal and regulatory agencies – they come in, they deal with all the litigation, all of the different enforcement actions that need to be taken. There's so many different angles to consider when there's some kind of a contamination event. Brothers and sisters, when we sin, we contaminate things. When our sin contaminates things, true repentance means taking the time to fully assess the damage. That's not just brushing over the surface, but taking it from multiple angles, taking a deep look. Imagine if it was your property that was contaminated, right? You've got your drinking source, let's say, somewhere behind your property, and you notice there's a spill. The EPA comes in, and they say to you, "Oh, this doesn't look too bad to me. An investigation would be too expensive. You should be fine." And they move on. How outraged would you be, right? There's contamination here. Someone needs to look into it. They need to do their job. Well, as it pertains to genuine repentance, your job, if you want to genuinely repent, is to do a full damage assessment of the sin. 

Now, what does this look like? I want you to look at three different angles that David uses for his sin from these three verses. Look at verse 1. He actually uses three words for sin. The first word is transgressions. Look at what it says in verse 1: “Blot out my transgressions.” The root there in the Hebrew is about rebellion. He's assessing his sin and how it's damaged from the perspective of rebellion. Do a damage assessment of how your sin has undermined the established order of things. How has it betrayed someone's trust? How what are the angles of your sin that have been rebellion? Here's another word that David used: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.” A second way of describing sin. And in the Hebrew, this has the connotation of perversity, twistedness. So, you're doing an assessment of how your sin or your action distorted or perverted things, because it did. It did. What should you have been doing in that time when you were sinning? What should that person have expected of you that they couldn't? Where did you take something good and make it evil, right? An assessment. Look at verse 2: “Cleanse me from my sin.” Now, this is the Hebrew word that we probably know most, and it sort of gets to missing the mark, assessing where exactly you missed the mark. What specifically did you do to miss the mark? How far off were you? What were some of the implications? Taking a deep look at how your sin impacted the person – that's what genuine repentance looks like. It's really the difference between saying something like, "Honey, I'm sorry for sometimes getting a little upset around here." Right? Minimizing. And how about this instead? “Honey, for more than 20 years in our marriage, I've demonstrated a pattern of belittling you and belittling the kids. My outbursts of anger and rage have caused our home to at any moment be volatile and full of awful energy and unbearable tension. It's wrong, and I'm going to deal with it.” That's someone who's taken full assessment of the impact of their sin. And you can tell. You can tell when someone's trying to brush over their sin, and you can tell when someone has taken the time – maybe write it out, think about, okay, this is my sin. These are the different layers of depravity and impact that this has had. That right there is an indicator that this person is genuinely repentant. They've taken the time. I haven't forced that person. They've taken the time to think about what is the damage that I have done with this sin? That's what true repentance looks like. David does this deep dive into the impact of the sin, and so should we. So, a full damage assessment. 

Third, it looks like cutting all ties. Cutting all ties. The Heidelberg describes the dying away of the old self as more and more hating and running away from our sin. Here's how the Westminster Standards use some similar language: “grief and hatred for sin that causes us to turn from it.” The real test of whether you're dying to self is not whether you say you hate your sin. Anyone can say that they hate their sin. Maybe you're saying it because you got caught. Maybe it's because you think you have to say it. Someone's trying to force that out of you. Or maybe it is true that you really do hate your sin. But the key, it rests in the inner person, the actual intentions of your heart. Look what David says in verse 6: “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being.” In the inward being. What have you actually done to match up the outward appearance with the inward being? With what you say and what you do? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for this sin. Okay, but what are you going to do about that? Will you turn and will you run? Here's a few diagnostic questions for you, just to get at this. Do you make plans to commit this sin? Do you make plans to commit this sin? Here's another question. Are you thinking beforehand about how you're going to manage the confession of this sin? Are you going through and wondering how much can I say without saying? Where's the line? How far can I go? Here's another question. Have you found words and phrases for minimizing your sin, using therapeutic terms perhaps. Does the inward match the outward? Does what you say match what you do? Dying to self means there is truth in the inward being, that you're willing not to just say you hate your sin, but to run from it and to turn from it. If we don't, Scripture warns us of this kind of double-mindedness. Matthew 7:18, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” 1 John 1:6, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie, and we don't practice the truth.” It's impossible. It's impossible for those two things to live in the same place, and David says, "This is what you want, God. Integrity. What I say, what I do." Paul in Romans 6 tells us what happens when we're truly united to Christ in his death. He says, "It's impossible for us who have died to sin to still live in it." And then he goes on in Romans 6:6 to say, "Your old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing." Sometimes – here's what happens – sometimes we attempt to keep our old self on life support, maybe down in our spiritual basements. We make sure the old self is not quite fully dead. We give it enough oxygen down there, maybe a little IV to keep it running so that when we feel the urge to indulge, we go down to our spiritual basement, and we revive the old self. And then when your pastor or your elder wants to examine your spiritual house, and they ask you some questions about your sin, may I have a look in the basement? “Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's nothing to see down there. I hate my sin. I grieve my sin. It's basically dead.” You haven't cut off all ties with it. So that's number one. Dying to self requires cutting all ties. Sorry, that's number three. So, dying to self looks like total personal responsibility, a full damage assessment, and cutting all ties with your sin. Okay, so that's part one. 

But there is a second part to genuine repentance. You might think to yourself, okay, we're talking about repentance, and that all sounded exactly like what I think repentance is, but there's a part two of repentance. Strange until you start thinking about it. If all we had was the dying to the old self, we'd be in trouble, because we'd be hating and running from something to nothing. We need something to run to. Here's what Jesus says in Matthew 16:25. He says, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” He doesn't just call us to die. No, when you lose your life for Christ's sake, it's because you're truly finding something new, rising to new life. And this is the secret – if there were a secret of true Christian repentance – I think it's this. And it's what makes Christian repentance so distinctive and so powerful, more than any other religious experience. We see repentance, as Reformed believers, as the Heidelberg states, and it's very consistent across some of these other Reformed catechisms, just as much focus should be on examining Christ's mercies as it is on examining our sin. That's what true repentance is. There's two parts. You examine your sin deeply, but you examine Christ's mercies. The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts this so well. Here's the definition: “Repentance is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred turn from his sin, from it to God.” It's not just having a sense for our sin that ultimately characterizes Christian repentance. It's really the mercy of God that animates us towards leaving it behind. 

Here's a way to think about it. The raging fire of the old self, with its relentless flames of desire, are not extinguished by gallons of hatred and grief being poured on them. Rather, those desires are snuffed out for lack of oxygen. We rise to new life in Christ, and the old self suffocates. It's interesting, when you talk to Christians who have overcome a besetting sin, you will probably find a theme in the way they describe it. They'll talk to you about losing their taste for the emptiness of sin as they pursue the fullness of Christ. That's what it was. That's what it was. We're not a 12-step program. There are benefits to those kinds of things. But true, genuine Christian repentance – the first part is dying to self, but there is another part. And this is the beauty of the gospel, and this is the power of the gospel, is that you can then rise to life anew. So, let's look at that. 

What does part two look like? The rising to life of the new self. It looks like three things. First, it looks like an unshakable confidence in Jesus. It looks like an unshakable confidence in Jesus. I want you to notice the shift that happens in Psalm 51. Maybe you catch the shift, but it happens starting in verse 7. Now, remember, David's sin is awful. It's public. It's shameful. He spends the first part of Psalm 51 examining and hating it, but watch the language shift starting in verse 7. He says, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Do you hear the confidence there? It's a confidence in God's power, in his ability to forgive and to cleanse. That's why we turn, because we know that God has the power to actually cleanse us. Think about these verses, and just let them wash over you if you're struggling with genuine repentance. Here's 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a trustworthy saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” John 3:17, Jesus himself says, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned." How about 1 John 1:9? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” As we're repenting, that comes to life for us, and it did for David. You can see it. There’s a turn. I'm going to be clean, because God can do that. He didn't have it fully revealed, but we do. We see Christ. We know why God can say that. It's because of Christ. These truths are incredibly powerful for the true repenter. They allow him to truly die to the old self, because this Christ came exactly for their ugliest sin. You're not in a position that Christ did not come to die for. That's exactly why he came. And that comes to life in true repentance. 

Here's a second way that rising to new life looks. It looks like zeal for restoration. Zeal for restoration. Repentance is all about restoration. You want to get things back to the way they were. Restoring fellowship, restoring connection, restoring health. As we rise to new life, we're infused with energy for restoration. Look at David's relentless focus on bringing things back to their original state. Look at verse 8: “Let the bones you have broken rejoice.” The broken state is mended. Look at verse 10: “Create in me a clean heart.” The dirty heart gets cleaned. Verse 12: “Restore the joy of your salvation.” The sorrow for sin makes way for the joy of restored relationships. It's only in our new life in Christ that this can actually happen, right? And the sinner who's repenting sees that. He sees Jesus binding up the brokenhearted. He sees Jesus sprinkling us clean from an evil conscience and washing us with pure water. He sees Jesus saving sinners, sending joy permeating through legions of angels in the heavenly places when even one sinner repents. There is a zeal inside of a true repenter for restoration, and he knows it's possible. Why? Because he's thinking about Christ. He is thinking about new life in Christ. And he's thinking about all the people, all the examples – many of us in this room – of how God has taken a sinner and transformed them into a Christlike, godly person. It's possible, and when you see true repentance, you see someone who's zealous for trying to get restoration. So, it looks like zeal for restoration. 

And third, and lastly, it looks like ongoing humility. Ongoing humility. Go to verse 17. Here's what David says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” When you rise to new life in Christ, you clothe yourself in a new posture, and it's a posture that doesn't leave. Here's how you can tell someone's not genuinely repentant. The humility they had yesterday is not there anymore. I can be humble when I'm caught, but can I be humble a week later? Can I be humble a month later? Can I be humble a year later when my wife needs to process what I've done? When your husband needs to process what you've done? When your children need to process – are you able to be humble in an ongoing way? That's what genuine repentance looks like. That's what it looks like. A broken and a contrite posture is a humble posture. And this again we find in Christ. When I'm dealing with consequences that I don't like, that I want people to just get over, I can accept it because I can look at the long-suffering that Jesus had. Think of how long-suffering he was. Oh, what, do I need to be long-suffering for a month, a year? Jesus was long-suffering. And I'm rising to new life, recognizing that ongoing humility is a part of that. And I can do it. Why? Because I see my Savior, how humble he was, how long-suffering he was. When I feel the need to defend myself and make excuses, I can be silent. I can be silent, like Pastor Kevin preached this morning. No words. I can do that. I don't have to answer back. Why? Because there is a humility that comes as I rise to new life in Christ. “My Savior opened not his mouth, as a sheep before its shearers is silent.” That's what he did. The sinless savior opened not his mouth. Can I be quiet, and can I be humble? When I feel the process isn't quite right, when I get restless about this process of repentance, I can endure it. Why? Look at how my Savior condescended to be born of a virgin, emptying himself to take on the form of a servant, though he was God. Of course I can empty myself. Of course I can go with this process of repentance, even if it's hard. That's what it looks like to rise to new life. 

So, when we look back at what took place between those two lines, when David says, "I have sinned against the Lord” and “The Lord has put away your sins" is what Nathan says – this is what David demonstrated, and he wrote about it in Psalm 51. A true genuine repentance. He took total responsibility. He did a full damage assessment. He cut off all ties. But he did all this fueled by an unshakable confidence in Jesus, a zeal for restoration, and an ongoing humility. Can we say that? If we can, we're on the path to genuine repentance. 

Now, with a sermon like this, Jesus teaches us to be mindful, and I pray that we are mindful of our response. Here are four that he highlights in the parable of the sower, and I want you to think about which soil you're going to be tonight. For some of us, the evil one will snatch this word away, give you a reason to ignore it. Ignore the words I've said. Move on with your evening. For some of us, the seed will fall on rocky soil. Maybe you've heard something convicting, it sparked a zeal for you to change – you got to change some things, some quick change – but when you face temptation next, when things get tough, this word's going to be a distant memory to you. I pray that it isn't, but that could be a soil. Here's another one. For some of us, this word falls on very crowded soil. It's not that you don't believe this word tonight. It's not that you don't believe you need to repent. You know exactly what you need to repent of. Here's where you're going to be tempted. You're going to be tempted to not spend the time reckoning with your own sin, to believe, like David did, that your sin can continue to be a secret. God in his Word is saying it can't. Either now or later, this will come into light, and the question is, how will you respond? Will you let the distractions of this world, all of the things that will encroach on your time when you leave this place – will you let that stand in the way of true repentance? Or for some of us here, and I pray this is most of us, this word will fall on good soil. What does Jesus say about the good soil? He says, "Those who hear the Word and understand it.” I pray that there's someone here where repentance has clicked for you, as it has for me, as it has for many of us. I pray that, because it's about understanding it, but it's also about putting it into action. 

And how do we do that? Here's what happens. Jesus says that the good soil bears fruit. It will bear fruit, and that is the distinguishing characteristic. The good soil bears fruit. Just as John the Baptist said – you remember it? What did he say? – bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And that's what God is calling us to tonight. That's what the Heidelberg calls us to. Let it be clear. Let the call be clear: true repentance, every one of us. And may the Lord convict us to do so here as we go. I pray that we will have ears to hear, oh Lord. Let's pray. 

Thank you, Lord, for the mercies of God in Christ. Thank you, God, for your Word, which is so clear, so convicting. I pray that each one of us, as we go from here, would reflect, would think on, would meditate on this Word, would root out sin from every corner, would have the conversation we need to have, would pray the prayers we need to have, would study the Word so that we can come to a place of true and genuine repentance, so that our light could shine and others might ask what it is that we have that changes us. We ask this in your holy name. Amen.