The New Birth Makes You Want to Repent
Many look at repentance in the Christian life as saying you are sorry for doing what you want to do (sin) or delighting in what you like (the world). In a sense, this view believes that we are repenting against our desires. Since we desire the wrong thing, we repent because we know it is wrong, but be don’t really mean it (or we mean it little) because really we are doing what we want when we sin. This understanding misses a major part of the Bible’s teaching on the new birth. When we are born again, we are given spiritual appetites, so that we want to delight in God and we desire to do God’s will. In this view, repenting of sin is not forced or coerced, but is exactly what we want to do, because we want to love and obey God. To listen to this sermon, please click on the following link: James 4:9, part 2.