This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to our daily drive time devotions. We're looking
together this week at Romans chapter two, we're in the fourth day of our look.
And today, I'd like to go back and pick up something in just verse four.

Romans chapter two, verse four says, or do you show contempt for the riches of
his, of God's kindness, tolerance, and patience. And then listen to this phrase,
not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance. I'd like to
focus on that phrase, God's kindness leads you towards repentance.

Now, just by the way, as we start this study, I believe that all verses in a
chapter are equally truthful, but some are more personally significant than
others. So as we go through this study of Romans, most days we're going to look at
five or so verses, but some days we'll focus on only one. Other days we might
cover 10 or 15 verses.

We might have some days where we focus on five or six verses two or three times,
two or three different ways. I want to focus on the verses in ways to bring out
the best truth for life change in my life, in your life. And this is an
incredibly life-changing phrase.

God's kindness leads you towards repentance. I'd like to work through that
phrase backwards, starting with the last word, the word repentance. Repentance
is one of the most beautiful words in the English language.

Now, a lot of people don't see it that way, but it is. I would say that in the
battle over the meaning of words, Satan is too often winning the war in this
one. A lot of people, when they hear the word repentance, they picture an ugly,
angry word.

They picture some long-haired modern-day prophet type standing on a city street
corner with an angrily scrawled-out sign that says, "Repent or die," that kind
of a word. That's not what the word repentance means. Repentance is about the
beauty of God's love in our lives.

Repentance simply means turn around, the ability for you and I to begin to turn
around, to think in a different way, to make a U-turn in our lives. God has
given us the opportunity to have a second chance. More than that, he has given
us the opportunity to turn around and lead a brand new kind of life.

Repentance, metanoia, the word means a change of mind, a change of heart, your
life now going in a different direction because of what God has done, in the
direction that it was always designed to go, and nothing feels better than that.
God wants to get us there to that place of repentance, that place of a
turnaround so we're living out the life that he made us to live. How does he get
us there?

Well, working backwards, God's kindness leads you towards repentance. God leads
us towards repentance. No one is forced to repent, it's not a matter of fear.

Repentance is a choice. When God looks at my life, he looks at your life, and he
sees that we're headed in the wrong direction, he leads us to repent. Now, maybe
sometimes that leading seems gentle, maybe sometimes that leading seems harsh,
but it's never forceful.

He is always leading us because repentance is our choice, not his choice. He's
given us the opportunity to make this choice to repent. I love Acts chapter
three, verse 19, which says, "Repent therefore and return "in order that times
of refreshing "may come from the presence of the Lord.

" That's why God's leading us towards repentance, because he wants to refresh
our hearts, he wants to refresh our lives. How does he do that? God wants to
lead us towards repentance, working backwards, how does he lead us towards
repentance?

Kindness, kindness. God's kindness leads you towards repentance. For some
people, that's the most surprising phrase in the Bible.

They think that it's God's harshness, they think that it's God's judgment, they
think that it's God's thunderbolt from the sky. It's not fear that leads us
towards repentance, it's not punishment that leads us towards repentance, it's
kindness. It's God's kindness that he doesn't zap you the moment that you sin.

You deserved it, you flaunted God's goodness by doing what you wanted, by being
selfish. I guess we deserve to be zapped, but God doesn't. He's kind, he's
patient.

It's God's kindness that he sends just the right circumstances at just the right
time in our lives to invite change. You've seen him do this many times. Your
life is headed in a certain direction and all of a sudden a circumstance, it
might be a good circumstance, it might be a difficult circumstance comes into
your life.

And that circumstance invites you to change. God's kindness is working through
that circumstance. Kindness is also seen in the fact that he sends the right
words to invite change into our lives.

To me, this is one of the most amazing expressions of God's kindness. I've seen
it many times in my life. You've probably seen it in your life.

When God wants me to change, it seems like everyone I hear talk is talking about
the same thing, the place I need to change. That's his kindness. When God wants
me to change, it seems like every conversation I have somehow interjected into
that conversation is a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph about this place I
need to change.

Just the right words at just the right time. I've noticed when God wants me to
change, I can flip on a radio station to country western music and bam, there's
a song about how I need to change. God can use anything and everything.

Yes, even country western music. He can use anything and everything. Through his
kindness, God invites us to change through sending just the right words at just
the right time.

God's kindness is also seen in the fact that he invites us to change by sending
just the right people into our lives. Now, if I don't want to change, if I'm
stubbornly refusing to change, and who hasn't done that a time or two in our
lives, then I see these kindnesses of God as intrusions. But the truth of the
matter is, why does God want me to repent, to get his way?

Of course not. God wants me to repent 'cause he knows the way that he made me.
He knows the life that he made me to live.

He knows the potential that I have to be the child of God that he wants me to
be. And so by his kindness, he continually sends into my life these invitations
to repent. So let me pass on God's invitation to you right now.

God's kindness leads you towards repentance. I invite you, God invites you.
Repent in a relationship that's headed the wrong way right now.

Repent. A change of heart, a change of mind. Ask God for a U-turn in that
relationship.

And that might mean in some relationships that the relationship needs to end. If
it's a dating relationship where you're just mismatched spiritually and the
relationship is taking you down spiritually, it might mean the relationship
needs to end. That would be the best for both of you.

It might mean in your marriage that the relationship needs to become something
new and fresh and real. For a long time, you just sort of had it on autopilot.
You need to repent in your relationship and ask God for a new love in that
marriage.

I invite you, repent in a relationship or maybe it's in a habit. There's
something you've accepted in your life as a Christian, maybe for a long time.
Might have to do with the way that you think.

It might have to do with the way that you talk to people. Might have to do with
the things that you look at. It might have to do with the things that you don't
do that God's inviting you to do.

In some habit in your life, repent. Right now, say, God, I know that you can
give me the strength and power to live in a brand new way. Repent in a
relationship and in a habit.

Maybe it's in an attitude. You just had an increasing attitude of bitterness or
of boredom or of drudgery. Or you've had an increasing attitude of distance from
God.

Repent of that attitude. Ask God for a U-turn. Repent in your heart towards God,
your relationship with him.

Here's the key. Right now, focus on God's kindness. We always resist repentance.

I do. We all do. And when we resist it, the temptation is to begin to think, God
is angry at me.

I've gotta push back. That's not angry at you. He loves you.

He gave his son for you. So right now, see in the kindness of God, the
invitation, the motivation that you need to repent. See repentance in a new way.

See God's love in a new way. Like a key turning in a lock. Just hear a click in
your mind that helps you to realize, I can change because of the kindness and
love of God.

Our relationship can be different because of the power of Jesus Christ. And open
the door to the new life that Jesus Christ wants to give. Take some time right
now to talk to him and say to him, Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry.

I got stubborn or I got lazy. And I just lived a way that I knew you didn't want
me to live. I'm sorry.

And right now, right here, I repent. I changed my heart. I changed my mind.

Even as I pray that, I realize I can't do that on my own strength and power. So
I ask for your strength for a changed heart and mind. Help me to see this sin
differently like you see it.

And because of that, to make a U-turn in my life. Help me to see this
relationship differently like you see it. Help me to see myself and what you
want to do in my life differently.

Jesus Christ, right now, I agree with you that I've been heading in the wrong
direction. And I ask you for the strength to head in a new direction. And I ask
you with confidence because your kindness is leading me towards repentance.

And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.