Repentance: Genuine Repentance by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Three Ways the Bible Describes Sin

Repentance is a daily, continuous practice because even after salvation, believers still struggle with sin. Revelation 2:5 — "Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." The lampstand here typifies the efficacy of devotion pertaining to the soul. Jesus wrote this to a church — and its warning is to believers.

To understand why repentance remains necessary, three distinct ways the Bible describes sin must be held together:

1. Sin the Place — Romans 6:1–2: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Sin is described as a place of death. Unbelievers are dead in sin — they live there. Believers, raised to life by the finished work of Christ, are dead to sin. They have been removed from that place.
2. Sin the Act — 1 John 3:8: "He who sins is of the devil." This refers to the individual act of sin — what a believer can still commit.
3. Sin the Position — Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." This refers to the universal human condition before Christ.

A believer is not a sinner, but a believer can sin. Believers are not in sin the place and do not carry sin the position — but they can commit sin the act. That is precisely why repentance remains necessary.

1 John 3:9 — "Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him; he cannot sin." This verse, taken in isolation, would suggest a believer cannot sin at all. The key is reading the whole book. First John is saturated with the theme of love — "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." To be born of God is to be born of love. To love God and love people is to obey his commandments. When he says one born of God cannot sin, he is saying that love — by definition — does not commit sin. Scripture must be used to explain scripture.

Wrong theology on this point produces hardness of heart — a condition where there are contradictions in a person's life, and they search for scriptures to pacify their conscience rather than address the contradiction. At that point, God has effectively been shut out.

God's Love Is Not Nice — It Is Kind

There is a common misunderstanding of God's love as something that is always pleasant. God loved Jesus and put him on the cross — because the cross was his destiny. In God's love, there is training. Hebrews 12:6 — "Whom the father loves, he chastises." Genuine love sometimes means not giving people what they want. A friend who enables laziness with money destroys the person they think they are helping. The cross did not look like love to the world — but in the context of destiny, it was the highest expression of it.

Repentance as Continuous Alignment

Romans 8:13 — "If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

Repentance is not a one-time event at conversion. It is a lifestyle of continually aligning the heart with God — a daily returning whenever there is drift. This is a sign of spiritual maturity, not failure. The Holy Spirit keeps convicting and guiding.

Sin can also be context-specific. God may instruct one person regarding something he has not commanded another. The Holy Spirit raises the standard progressively. There are conversations a believer could join at one stage that, six months later, the Spirit will no longer permit. There are words that once came naturally that now must be removed. There are songs that, the moment they begin, the Spirit checks. The standard is not static — it rises as a person grows.

Believers look too much like the world in this generation. There must be a difference. There must be fruit of righteousness.

1 John 1:9 — Written to Believers

1 John 1:8–9 — "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Some argue this passage was written to unbelievers, citing 1 John 1:3 — "that which we have heard we declare to you, that you may have fellowship with us" — as evidence the audience had not yet come to faith. But this reading fails for several reasons:

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Pastor Dolapo Lawal
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• The word "declared" in verse 3 — the Greek word used — appears in 1 Corinthians 15:1 in Paul's address to the church in Corinth: "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you." It is used for gospel explanation within the church, not exclusively for evangelism to outsiders.
• The audience of the entire letter — First John was not addressed to a single congregation but circulated among house churches around Ephesus and Asia Minor where John had lived, around AD 90. The churches in that region numbered around two thousand scattered gatherings. It was a pastoral letter to believers.
• John includes himself — Verse 6: "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness..." He did not write "if they" or "if you." He includes himself among the audience. If the passage were addressed to unbelievers, he would not have written in the first person plural.
• The language throughout the letter — 1 John 4:1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits." One does not address unbelievers as "beloved" and instruct them in discerning false teaching. 1 John 4:4: "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them." This is a clear term for believers.
• No apostle ever wrote a letter to unbelievers — The gospel is proclaimed to the world, but it is explained in the church. The epistles are explanations of the gospel. They belong to the church.
• 2 Timothy 3:16–17 — "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." Scripture is given for the equipping of believers — including First John.

What Confession Means

The word translated "confess" in 1 John 1:9 is the Greek word homologeō — from homos (same) and logeō (to speak or say). It means to say the same thing, to agree, to acknowledge.

To confess sin is not to recite it to God so he can be informed. It is to see sin the way God sees it — not as merely a weakness or a pattern, but as sin.

It is agreement: if God says it is wrong, the believer comes to see it as wrong also. That acknowledgment is not for God's benefit — it is for the believer's. It is the turning point that opens access to teaching and restoration.

There is a second extreme to avoid as well. Some teach that believers only confess the lordship of Jesus — never sin — because God has already dealt with sin at the cross. But this position amounts to refusing to acknowledge that sin was committed. The acknowledgment is not so that God can be told something he does not know. It is so the believer can come to him for teaching, cleansing, and realignment.

The very fact that a person who has sinned can still approach God in prayer is grace. Titus 2:11–12 — "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly." Grace teaches. The law is consequential — it states what happens when a line is crossed. Grace teaches why the line is there and provides the means not to cross it.

2 Corinthians 3:16 — "Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." Repentance is that turning. It is not a feeling of self-condemnation. It is an orientation — a turning toward Christ to receive light, instruction, and the power to walk differently.

Walking in the Light — The Pattern of John 8

John 8:11–12 — Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." Verse 12 continues immediately: "I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life."

The instruction to go and sin no more was not left without a method. The method is: follow me. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The strategy is not to attack the flesh directly — that battle is already lost before it begins. The strategy is to turn toward Christ.

Malachi 3:3 — "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver." The image is deliberate. Gold and silver are not destroyed by fire — they are refined. The refiner does not put the metal in the fire and walk away. He sits. He monitors the intensity. He increases the heat only to the level the metal can bear at that stage of the process.

As the fire of God comes upon a life, the first thing that happens is that impurities begin to surface. The believer starts to see things about themselves — selfishness, impatience, patterns of sin — that were previously hidden or excused. This is not the moment to conclude that something is wrong or that faith is not working. This is the refining process working exactly as it should.

When conviction comes, the response determines the outcome. Looking at what is being revealed produces condemnation. Looking to Christ produces transformation.

Peter walking on water is the pattern. When he looked at the storm, he sank. When he looked at the Lord, he walked. When God's fire reveals who a person truly is, the enemy is present to say: this is who you really are, you cannot change, this Christianity is not for you. That is not honest assessment — it is accusation. The impurities surfacing are evidence that God is still at work, not evidence that he has given up.

If a person sins and feels genuine sorrow, that sorrow is proof the Holy Spirit is still present. The Spirit is saying: what you did is inconsistent with your new nature. That conviction is a gift. The response to it is not self-condemnation — it is turning to Jesus.

Restitution and Exercising Members unto Righteousness

Repentance is not only internal. Where sin has harmed another person, repentance includes restitution — going back, apologizing, making what was wrong right. Confessing to God while leaving the damage to another person unaddressed is incomplete.

Romans 6 speaks of yielding members as instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. A person who has practiced a particular sin for years has, in a very real sense, trained their members in that direction. It has become second nature. Genuine repentance involves beginning to exercise those same members in the opposite direction — toward righteousness. The conversion comes when the latter practice outweighs the former.

This takes time. Give yourself grace in the process. But do not use grace as a reason to stay still. The direction matters. Begin practicing.

Scripturizing Your Life

Romans 15:4 — "All scriptures that were written before were written for our learning." This means that for every situation a believer faces, there is a pattern somewhere in scripture that speaks to it — a way out, a precedent, a path.

John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah. Luke 1:17 confirms this. Yet Elijah performed miracles and John did not. What attacked Elijah? The spirit of Jezebel — who asked for his head. What attacked John? Herodias — who asked for his head. The same spirit. But there was a way of escape available to John that he did not take, because he had not applied Elijah's experience to his own.

The pattern was there in scripture. The answer was not hidden. It required sitting with the word and allowing God to reveal it.

This is what it means to scripturize your life — to bring a situation to God, ask him to show where that situation appears in scripture, and receive the wisdom that is already there. God is faithful. The answers are in the word. The people who do not find them are largely those who have not sat down long enough with it.